Taking money from people’s pockets on false pretense fits the legal definition of fraud. Doing so in order to conceal one’s own failures probably constitutes a kind of informal conspiracy.
Why NFL players sign collective bargaining agreements that force them to put up with it is beyond me.
According to NBC Sports’ “Pro Football Talk,” the NFL compounded its already egregious officiating crisis — showcased at its worst during the two-time defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs’ 23-14 playoff victory over the Houston Texans on Saturday — first by fining Texans’ running back Joe Mixon $25,000 for comments he did not make, and then later by doubling down on the fine and citing comments he did make.
The league originally fined Mixon for the following statement: “Why play the game if every 50/50 call goes with Chiefs. These officials are trash and bias.” Those words, however, came not from Mixon but from former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh.
Undeterred in its mission to silence criticism, and insusceptible to shame, the NFL maintained the fine, citing Mixon’s actual words.
“Everybody know how it is playing up here,” Mixon said on Saturday, referring to Kansas City. “You can’t — you can never leave — you can never leave it into the refs’ hands. But, I mean the whole world see, man, like, what it is, bro. But it is what it is. Like I said, when it come down to it you can never leave it into the refs’ hands, man, and things like that, but it’s all good, though.”
Readers may view Mixon’s comments in the clip below, posted to the social media platform X. Note that he mentioned the officiating, but he also suggested that Houston should have played better and not left it to the refs to decide the game’s outcome.
The NFL fined Texans running back Joe Mixon for saying this after the Kansas City win: “Why play the game if every 50/50 call goes with Chiefs. These officials are trash and bias.”
Here is the problem — Joe did not say that.
Below are his comments when asked about the… https://t.co/fyL3LfgkVB
— Will Kunkel (@WillKunkelFOX) January 22, 2025
Do you watch the NFL?
Yes: 0% (0 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
Mixon’s comments stemmed from a pair of extremely controversial penalties against the Texans. Both penalties involved alleged fouls on Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes that few independent observers regarded as justified.
Late in the third quarter of a 13-12 game, for instance, an “unnecessary roughness” penalty against Houston defenders who barely made contact with Mahomes prompted an audible expression of disgust from ESPN broadcaster Troy Aikman, a Hall-of-Fame quarterback who spent his illustrious career with the Dallas Cowboys.
“Oh, come on,” Aikman said in a clip of the play posted to X.
“I mean, he’s a runner,” Aikman added, referring to Mahomes, “and I could not disagree with that one more, and he barely gets hit.”
The same clip showed an equally abominable penalty call on a hit against Mahomes in the game’s first quarter.
“Oh, come on! I mean, he’s a runner. I could not disagree with that one more. He barely gets hit.” – Troy Aikman
“The two Houston players hit each other. That should not have been a foul.” – Russell Yurk
“They’ve gotta address it in the offseason…” – Aikman 🏈🎙️🦓 #NFL https://t.co/vXj2v7VTKg pic.twitter.com/QioQ5IQwhg
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 18, 2025
The final statistics only further highlighted the serious officiating problem. Houston, for instance, outgained Kansas City in total yardage, 336-212, converted ten of 17 third downs compared to only four of 11 for the Chiefs, held the ball for nearly seven more minutes, did not commit a turnover, and yet lost the game thanks largely to eight penalties for 82 yards compared to Kansas City’s four penalties for 29 yards.
NFL owners and executives might or might not care about the league’s officiating problem. But their concern, if it exists, has less to do with integrity and more to do with perception.
In 2021, for instance, the NFL announced a formal partnership with several online betting platforms. Millions of gamblers, including financially desperate ones, have since lost money.
Of course, the NFL has always relied heavily on gambling to drive viewership. Anyone who has followed the sport closely for years knows this. It explains, for instance, why the league publishes a weekly injury report: to stave off accusations that insiders might benefit from knowledge of key players’ injury statuses and then use that information to make money in the betting markets.
In 2018, the American Gaming Association estimated that the NFL could profit $2.3 billion annually from legalized sports betting.
Thus, the league’s gambling partnership had nothing to do with integrity.
The same holds true for player safety. NFL executives make a big show of supporting player-safety initiatives. But they revealed their first priority, again in 2021, when Amazon agreed to pay approximately $1 billion annually for exclusive rights to the NFL’s Thursday Night Football package, per CNBC.
That meant, of course, that players would continue suiting up and crashing into one another at high speeds during games on Thursday nights after receiving, in most cases, only three days’ rest following games the previous Sunday.
In short, when money and integrity clash, the NFL prioritizes the former and treats the latter as a perception problem.
If the league wants to avoid the perception that its officials give special consideration to the Chiefs, for instance, then perhaps it should instruct those officials not to make bad calls.
Of course, one cannot avoid human error altogether. But people tend to forgive mistakes except when those mistakes form part of a suspicious pattern.
Moreover, the league would avoid the perception that it favors the Chiefs if its broadcast partners started directing their in-game cameras away from pop music superstar Taylor Swift, girlfriend of Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce, instead of showing her reactions throughout games and thereby raising the very reasonable suspicion that the NFL hopes to prolong the Chiefs’ season so as to benefit from Swift-related viewership.
After all, beclowning themselves by fining Mixon on account of words he never said, and then keeping the fine in place afterward so as to remind him not to speak the truth about the league’s officiating problem, surely did not aid the NFL in alleviating its perception problem.
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