Cries from coaches, players and fans that the NFL is biased to popular teams and/or superstar players is one of the few criticisms that the NFL will always push back on.
Competitive balance is the league’s mantra, after all. Any Given Sunday, and all of that. Most of the conspiracy theories don’t exactly shake out, either. No, the refs weren't trying to set a certain matchup when they missed that pass interference call.Entering the final week of the season, the Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks areSeattle needs to beat the Los Angeles Rams and then have the Lions defeat the Packers.
However, instead of having all three teams play at the same time — namely the late Sunday afternoon window — the NFL decided to flex the Detroit-Green Bay game to 8:25 p.m. ET Sunday night. Yet Seattle will still play LA at 4:25 p.m. ETMaybe that influences Detroit’s effort. Maybe it doesn’t and they’d play just as all out in an effort to just win a game and spoil Green Bay’s season.
The NFL, if only to avoid suggestions of bias — which it will vehemently dispute — should have avoided this. Yet they chose not to. And regardless of the scenario, there is an additional measure of advantage for the Packers with the late time slot. As Rodgers has pointed out weeks ago, Detroit plays its home games in a dome. Green Bay has historically feasted on those kinds of teams when they have to play in the Wisconsin winter.
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