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marty -> RE: The Packers (12/17/2009 8:30:25 PM)
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I don't think it's anything as organized as that. I think that refs, being human, have subconscious favorites and it can manifest itself in the way they call a game. I don't think there is any pre-game meeting in which they agree on a sway - but I just think they see things differently for one team versus another. I know that, as fans, we tend to overlook our own team's transgressions and want a call on every little thing that the other team does.
Human nature.
Lynn
Where this runs into trouble is where we can correctly predict WHICH WAY the bias is going to go before the game. If we can predict they'll either leave it alone, or else they will favor THIS team, and be right EVERY time, then something might be up. IF we picked out 20 games, 10 of them appeared to be left alone, 10 of them had the bias towards the team we picked, but not a single ONE appeared to have a bias the opposite way, the odds would seem to be almost astronomical that not ONE would go the opposite way.
With Vikes at Arizona, it seemed like the betting would be on the Vikes as they beat Arizona EASILY last year with TJACK, and the Vikes are a better team this year. Add the fact that Favre threw 5 TDs on them in one quarter last year, and it wouldn't be surprsing to learn that MUCH more was bet on the Vikes in this years' matchup. I think the game was either left alone, or the refs favored the Cards. It could NOT be argued that the refs favored the Vikings in that game.
We know for a fact that going into the Vikes/Bengals game, the spread changed from Vikes -7, to Vikes -6. Unless there was a surge at the end, there was MUCH more bet on the Cincy. We would expect if there was any kind of 'sway' going on, it would be likely the refs would favor Minnesota, and it appears they DID, or you could argue they left it alone, but they did NOT favor Cincy.,
Now that is just 2 games, but if we picked out 20 games like this, and not a single ONE appeared to have biased officiating the other way, then we might wonder if something is up, or we just seemed to have defied some GREAT odds. It would seem unlikely that it was just human nature causing bias at that point, there was a pattern emerging.
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