BakoSaint

I have been pondering a concept. Referees keep screwing the Saints. They keep getting more brazen. The “see no evil, hear no evil” strategy is not working and its only getting worse. Its been bad ever since the no call, but this year its at a new level, with a series of inexplicable calls in the 4th quarter with all the momentum in the balance in both our games so far.

What can we do? Just wait and be patient? Get a way better QB than Josh Allen and a way better defense the Rams so we can beat 16 men, despite our cap situation and lack of draft picks? Close our eyes, whistle, and hope it stops? Hope the refs just have it our for some certain player or member of management and will forget that our whole city blamed them for the no call? Forgive them and beg for mercy?

I had another thought. Could we go on offense? Sometimes you have to make a successful strike to get the opposition to back off. As fans we can do what we want, and maybe we do have power.

My premise is that many refs are screwing us and they know it. Maybe Goodell hints to them to do it because he has a grudge and we arent an important market, or maybe they hate us because we didnt respect their authority after the no call and in their minds we should thank them for the no call and apologize to them. Regardless, I think the majority of refs are screwing us, they are unethical in doing it, and if they are unethical in that, they are probably unethical in other areas of their lives, cheating on their wives, stealing stuff from their day jobs, gambling, soliciting prostitutes, taking bribes, using hard drugs, drunk driving, dating underaged boys or girls, etc. So what if after each game where we get abused by corrupt refs, we pick the ref most responsible, and a few hundred Saints fans contribute $10-20 each to hire a private investigator to follow that ref around a couple months later when they least expect it, maybe blow a whistle on them with some compromising photos on the internet that get them arrested or divorced? There must be tens or hundreds of thousands of Saints fans disappointed with recent officiating, so even a small percentage could make a difference.

This might seem like tampering, but I dont think fan activity outside the stadium can really be regulated by the NFL. Legally, I think anyone can put a PI on anyone. This could be structured as a journalistic endeavor publishing the findings, and the protections for journalism are strong. Refs would hate it and might make more bad calls against us, but then those refs would get PI’s on them, and if they wont let us into the Superbowl anyway, more bad call would just improve our draft picks while we solve the problem. We could structure it so that if a season happens where the clear statistical trends of biased officiating against us end, we pause the program. At some point refs might decide its not worth abusing our fanbase and team and its in their own interests and to call a fair game for us so nobody is keeping track of where they are at night on the road.

Has anyone ever tried anything like this? Could it work? How much would it cost to put a PI on a ref for a day or two or for a weekend road trip? Is there a law I am missing that could stop it? Maybe if we want to stop being abused, we have to fight back?

Pete

If this goes anywhere I have a couple dollars to pitch in just let me know when it's fully organized.

That's a corrupt situation that will take something massive to crack open.
One huge rotten egg there man.
It truly stinks


Sadly, the only shot I think we have in the here and now is to keep games from being close and keep them out of our way with their obvious corrupt agendas in their "league of entertainment."

Add a bunch of money into the fold and watch the stench of greed tarnish everything in it's path.

I'm on board if it goes anywhere.
Others will have a better ideas on this.. I just have little opinions lol

Is it because we're a small market team?

Is it because we haven't endured enough behind them wanting to fast track the CTE thing and we were chosen to be the sacrificial lamb to a bounty program that they allegedly never provided any hard evidence?
I truly don't know but it makes me sick to see the obvious.

Its

\m/{×.#}\m/

Pete

Let's hire hitmen instead

You might be onto something but I truly don't know, hopefully others will chime in on potential avenues to travel..
One hell of a ****ty road but something needs to be done no doubt!

neugey

No need to crowdfund it. We should be able to get FanDuel or DraftKings to sponsor it. Their name is on pretty much everything else already,

stickman

Interesting idea, but, and you can call me a cynic, I think even if an official came forward and admitted to bias in his calls, the league would call it an isolated incident and move on.

The league doesn't care about public perception of the refs. They care about sponsorships and broadcast revenue.

You would have to have an organized effort by fans across the country to boycott sponsors and not watch games to have an effect. Most fans will look at this, call Saints fans crybabies and move on, even though other teams have been screwed as well.

Just my 2 cents.

"Stay Gold, Ponyboy. Stay Gold."

AsylumGuido

AsylumGuido

You can go out to fan forums of every team in the league and see this exact same complaint. Every fanbase has people that are convinced the refs are intentionally trying to screw them as part of some grand nefarious scheme.

So, go ahead and throw away your money. While you're at it, maybe you can get Joe Mannix to prove the Earth is flat as a package deal.

SmashMouth

It's just like in real life... there's corruption everywhere, from private companies to the gubmint and military. Nothing different with the NFL. You'd think, for the integrity of the game and the following of a valuable fan base, that they'd at least not be so obvious with what we've all seen, or at least do something about the way too obvious entirely reversible bad calls. Instead, it's become more aligned with boxing and WWE with what seems to be predetermined outcomes. It's all carefully crafted and maybe even preplanned to a certain extent long in advance. Hence taking it all with huge swaths of grains of salt. In the end, it's just all entertainment, like a movie script where they can tweak as the season goes along. All the more reason to not be so invested emotionally as fans, pragmatically speaking. College football is more pure, even though it is changing now with NIL and the transfer portal. They finally enhanced the playoff system for the big boy college league.

leilung

You could do this in an ideal world. But you're talking about investigating a multi-billion $ commercial enterprise with EVERYONE involved (Top to Bottom) with their hands in the pot!

Short of finding game fixing for gambling, I doubt if they could turn up something.

Keep in mind also that in order for a conspiracy to work, you have multiple parties collaborating together toward a single action. (Don't know about you, but I can't even get my family to collaborate on a restaurant decision!)
If history tells us anything, conspiracies inevitably fall apart because SOMEONE ALWAYS TALKS!

A wise man once said, "Poo-poo smells just as bad as s#!%. One just SOUNDS cuter!"

Budsdrinker

There will always be human error in officiating a game. What needs to be done which isn't drastic is review all personal foul calls like they do with targeting in college. These calls that might look suspicious in real time turn out to be nothing in replay. This is all that needs to be done in my opinion.