The Fix Is Not In…

Last evening, around halftime of the Eagles/Seahawks game, I went to check my emails and found one from a former colleague.  He was irate to say the least; I believe that if someone had offered him Roger Goodell’s head on a plate he would have accepted the trophy, fastened it to the end of a pole and planted that pole in his front yard.  My intention this morning is not to convince him that Roger Goodell and he ought to be “besties”, but I do think that he is being much harsher on The Commish than he should be.

Let me clean up the language in his email and do some paraphrasing.  After all, we have standards to uphold here in Curmudgeon Central; they may not be lofty standards, but they are standards.

• The fix is in for the Baltimore Ravens.  The NFL wants them in the playoffs and will get them there “by any means necessary”.
• Someone on the Ravens broke the NFL’s COVID-19 protocol and the team became a hotspot all within itself.  They get do-overs on their schedule to avoid having the Ravens lose a third game in a row.  [Aside: In one of the less virulent figures of speech in the email, my former colleague said that the NFL had moved the Ravens/Steelers game around “more than a knight on a chessboard.”]
• When the Broncos had a similar problem and could not play a game with an eligible QB, the NFL made them play the Saints anyway.  [Aside:  My former colleague did not assert that the NFL had the fix in such that the Saints were guaranteed a playoff slot; his focus was purely on the Ravens.]
• Do not be surprised if the NFL rehires Walt Coleman to call Ravens games all the way to January.

Let me explain that last paraphrase.  My former colleague continues to believe that Walt Coleman was acting on orders from on high when he made the “Tuck Rule call” in a Patriots/Raiders playoff game about two decades ago.  For the record, I know for sure that he does NOT believe in the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission or the Deep State.  However, he will die on the hill that defends the position that every once in a while, the NFL overlords put their thumb on the scale of fair play to the benefit of specific teams.  And in 2020, he is convinced that the “teacher’s pet” in the NFL would be the Baltimore Ravens.

He concluded with this statement – – again I have edited it to make it comply with the community standards of Curmudgeon Central:

• If he (The Commish) doesn’t bleeping make the Ravens bleeping forfeit the game against the Steelers, I hope he and all the bleepers at NFL HQs rot in hell.

That concluding statement is the easiest one to start with when it comes to reducing the level of acrimony  here.  No one wants to forfeit that game including the Pittsburgh Steelers’ players.  According to the CBA in place, if a game is forfeited, the players lose a payday.  So, if a player on the Steelers has a base salary in 2020 of $2M, he would lose approximately 1/16^th of that salary if a game were forfeited.  That player would lose $125K.  Sure, the imaginary player in this example would still be financially secure but losing out on $125K when the player involved did nothing wrong is a sour deal for that player.  Ergo, I believe that the NFL – – and most importantly, the NFLPA – – will endure almost any sort of schedule contortion imaginable to avoid a forfeited game.

I think the latest scheduling change – and it is not guaranteed to be the final change – proves my assertion here.  The game is now scheduled for 3:30 PM on Wednesday December 2^nd.  That is a strange time indeed for an NFL game; it is a workday and the game will begin on the West Coast at 12:30 PM; that pretty much assures low TV ratings which the NFL abhors.  The NFL – and its “broadcasting partner” NBC – have agreed to put a game that would have drawn a huge audience under normal circumstances into a time slot where it might be one of the lowest games of the year in terms of TV ratings.

Enough about a forfeit; that is a last resort; it is “the final solution” only to be invoked when there are no other options.  The other aspect of this situation is to examine the motivation(s) that the league – via The Commish – might have so that they are treating the Ravens under a special set of scheduling rules.  I spent time over my morning coffee today trying to come up with said motivations and cannot think of any that  might stand up to scrutiny in an unagitated set of circumstances.

• Baltimore is not a huge TV market; in fact, it is only the third largest market among AFC North teams; Pittsburgh is a larger TV market than Baltimore.
• The Ravens do not have “NFL history” as a motivator.  Surely the Steelers and Browns have “deeper NFL roots” than the Ravens do.
• The Ravens’ owner, Steve Bisciotti, is certainly no more influential or a greater part of the NFL inner circle than are the Rooneys who own the Steelers.

The fix is not in; if the Ravens right their ship and make it to the playoffs it will be a result of just that; the Ravens righted their ship and got to the playoffs on the basis of their record.

Moreover, it is time to give Walt Coleman some respite and allow him to enjoy his retirement.  He was not a marionette dancing on strings pulled by higher-ups in the NFL back in 2002 when he invoked the Tuck Rule.  You may continue to disagree with that ruling; you may continue to think that Walt Coleman made the single worst call in the history of officials making calls.  But there is no evidence that Walt Coleman is the poster child for any sort of manipulation from NFL HQs when it comes to favoritism for certain teams.

Finally, I made reference to “the final solution” above; that phrase will always be part of the history of Nazi Germany; “the final solution” refers to Hitler’s all-out effort to eliminate Jews completely from Germany.  With that in mind, let me close with this entry from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Hitler, Adolph:  Perhaps the world’s biggest butthole, whose prudent decision to blow his own brains out ensured there would be no intellectual-property ownership issues around the hundreds of hours of stock footage of him needed to keep the History Channel in business.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………