Tired of the Conspiracy Theories

I agree with you there and made reference to this in a previous post and if that's the case it goes against the idea some have that the Steelers are being singled out or picked on. Like I said in the other post. Who would the NFL like to see representing them in other countries or new markets ? It's gonna be teams that have large followings and sell tickets and that sure as hell wouldn't be the Ravens or many of the less popular teams.

 

I can see where this discussion is going. If I say that I don't think that the NFL or Goodell is specifically targeting the Steelers organization, people start jumping to incorrect conclusions. Let me set the record straight about what I was or was not saying in the OP. I did not say that the refs are totally unbiased. Any time humans are involved in any process which requires judgement, especially snap judgement where the opportunity to think about a decision is limited to a few seconds or less, there will be bias. However these same conditions would limit the ability of the referees to impose some kind of league agenda against any particular team.
Does anyone really believe that after a possible penalty is seen by an official he stops to think "I wonder if calling this penalty would serve Goodell's secret plan to help the teams he likes, or not". Of course he doesn't, more likely he is thinking something like "I can't remember which of the numerous changes and unclear rules should apply here."
I can believe that to a limited extent the number on the back of the jersey might make a ref lean toward either making a call or not, but not the color of the jersey. Player reputations are certainly perceived by the refs, as well as anyone else who watches football, and probably affects their calls. This is human nature and can be found in all sports. See NBA games (which interest me as much as the world badminton championships). When there is a charge call to be made under the basket, which players are involved has more to do with the call than the actual rules about positioning. Does anyone ever remember Jordan getting called for an offensive foul. This is a judgment type call, much like all of the new rules in the NFL. Judgement calls amplify the bias by allowing the call to go either way based on the official's "gut". If the league can make the "new" rules more clear in the future I believe the refs will be more consistent.
So, to wrap this post and my view on this matter up, the NFL conspiring to keep the Steelers down seems very unlikely to me. The rules are unclear and quite frankly are taking away a lot of what is great about football. The calls are inconsistent due to the lack of definition to the rules and the fact that the refs are human. The constant claims that "they are all out to get us" sound like a lot of other whiners I laugh at from other teams. These are my opinions only, I don't claim to have any right to tell anyone what to think. I only wanted to know if there was anyone out there who felt similarly.

Now lets just go out there on Monday night kick some SF tail.

 

I buy what you're selling here and I'd only add that the unclear and border line ridiculous rules have more to do with protecting the NFL wallet in the event of a player class action law suit versus protecting player safety.

 

Once again, it doesn't matter what we think. He was flagged and fined so officially, they were illegal. Goodell is only going to let someone get away with so many flags and fines before he slaps them with a suspension.

I agree that someone throwing punches is bad (unless you play hockey apparently). We may think that the rules are unrealistic but they are the rules, like it or not.

 

Yep, and check out all the other message boards, tv shows, radio shows. Almost EVERY SINGLE ONE thinks Harrison is a dirty player, yet people on here still defend him. Yes, we are passionate. Yes, he may have been fined a little more than others, but so don't other players. Thre is a reason they keep calling things on him.

He needs to change or get out. I love the guy, and hope he's around a few more years, but perception is perception. Whining about it on our own board is not going to get the leaders of a multi billion dollar industry to change anything.

 

Harrison actually made comments about Goodell, who else did? Harrison did not make the trip to the whitehouse after the last super bowl win. He is the league's best candidate in their eyes to make an example out of. They help their case by using the media to make Harrison's image worse than other players like him. Remember the government has investigated the NFL. Ray is a piece of garbage, but the media makes him out to be a good guy. I will bet that Ray has far more helmet to helmet hits amassed than Harrison all with less consequence. The hit on Ward was a defenseless receiver with little consequence. There are numerous other examples of other players.

McCoy was out of the pocket; the hit was no more dirty that the helmet to helmet on Mendy. Colt got hurt, so that magnifies the hit and give it attention. There are quarterbacks like Tebow, Newton, Vick... They are runningbacks out of the pocket and so you have to be physical with a scrambling QB that does not slide. Remember the QB has a defense mechanism in the rules: SLIDE. If a QB does not slide out of the pocket he is a runningback. McCoy did not slide; he could have, but he CHOSE not to.

No conspiracy, Harrison IS being picked on and Ben IS allowed to be beat on more than other QB's because his NON-CONVICTION looked bad.

This IS political; do not make statements about Goodell, and put on a show with the president who the Rooneys support and who's government has investigated the NFL.

Be a Steeler fan and support the TEAM; support Harrison.

 

Now you know why our defense dont look familiar.They want to play lights out but they are being handcuffed.The raven play the same style but you don't see them getting fined.

 

Fines are one thing; now the nfl is taking a player from the team.

 

LOL! Yes it's all political. In those split seconds a ref has to make call he's thinking about James not going to the whitehouse and bad mouthing Roger and that's why he throws the flag. That's ridiculous. I DO support the team and I love JH but after being flagged for the same thing so many times the suspension was inevitable. If he wasn't suspended fans from 31 other teams would have been crying foul that the Steelers were being shown favoritism by the league.

 

The other teams have already been crying.When have we started concerning ourselves with what other teams or fans think of us.Does anyone remember when all this non sense started? How about the sack on vince young?Three steelers meet at the qb and harrison is the onlyto get fined?!He knock two players out of the game at cleve. and now he go from being a defensive beast to a monster that plays dirty.Mind you that this is the same guy who was DPOY a season before this mess started and tackling the same way.Yes he is being picked on and the refs watch tv and read papers and watch film.Yes they get briefed on certain players.
Oh ,and another thing, you would think since the refs and commish are watching harrison so closely that they would do something about ALL those holding calls that they so conveniently miss ALL season.

 

I do not think there is a grand conspiracy against the Steelers. I do think thaat #292 has been singled out and made a posterchild. I have seen refs reaching for theior flags PRIOR to him even making a hit. Rules are applied a little differently for #92. Ray Lewis has as many questionable hits as JH, but he is a media darling (if you are only a hard nosed football player you are not, if you whoop, hollar, and dance, they love you). What was the rule JH broke when he hit Fitzpatrick in the mid section -- I think it was being JH and hitting too hard? There is no doubt that refs call things differently depending on the player.

Last week Brady got a totally BS flag vs. the skins, and it affected how the skins approached Brady later (this was downfield too).

The new rules really help guys like Tebow, Newton, and Vick (though he does not get calls like Brady would too) -- these guys are often the best RB on the field yet they get the protections of the QB. I am sure the refs call certain QBs differently because of who they are...

JH's hit simply did not warrant a suspension.

And the notion that other team's fans think JH is dirty is a terrible arguement. They think Ward is the dirtiest player in the league, they hate Ben, etc. Fact is they hate Steelers for the most part and will take every and any opportunity to cast the Steelers in a negative light (every once in a while there is a fan who is not simply a hater). If JH was on their team, they would be singing a different story.

 

Other fans thinking JH is dirty isn't the arguement I was trying to make at all. That has nothing to do with it. The arguement would be not being suspended after repeated penalties and fines for head shots. Questionable calls or not the FACTS are JH has been flagged for the same type of infractions multiple times which is what drew the suspension. If Lewis or Suggs chalked up the same number of penalties and fines for the same type of infractions they'd be suspended as well but they haven't, at least not yet. I'd be the 1st to say a few of those calls were questionable at best but it doesn't matter. The calls were made and the fines were levied too many times so the suspension was inevitable. I wouldn't disagree that they're singling him out but that's based on the history he's helped create. It's clear for the past 2 years they've been trying to send him a message about the way he's been hitting players and JH has also made it very clear he's not going to change a thing and let the chips fall where they may. So the NFL's doing their thing and JH is doing his. I'm fine with that but I also realize it comes with consequences like JH sitting out this week. Eventually James is going to have to decide if he wants to play the new watered down version of football. Whether we like it or not that's what the game has now become so players like JH will either play along with the league or they'll ultimately be driven out. Sad but true I'm afraid.

 

They'd be the first to be suspended if they were held to the same standard Harrison was. The issue here is that there is a different standard for different people.

 

Yes and Harrison's on the field history and self admission of the way he's gonna play football helped create that standard so it is what it is.

 

Here's the thing, if you don't even know the rules of the game, how can you say that it's a legal hit? The fact is, until the QB passes the line of scrimmage, he is a passer, not a RB. It doesn't matter if he scrambles out of the pocket with the ball tucked, unless he has passed the line of scrimmage, he's a passer, not a RB, period.

If you actually look at the rule, Harrison's hit was illegal. It's not even like it's an opinion, it's pretty black and white, it was an illegal hit.

Harrison is a professional athlete, he should read the rules, understand them and play within them. He should also learn to shut his mouth in the media. Saying you wouldn't piss on your boss if he was on fire is incredibly stupid. He's a professional athlete who at times hasn't acted professional at all.

I'm fine with him taking the odd roughing the passer penalty as those things happen, but if he continues to hit defenceless players in the head, then I hope the Steelers cut him, because I have no time for players who hurt their team.

 

Fining Harrison or any other player over and over (Doing the same thing) and expecting them to change their behavior (expecting different results) is the definition of insanity. Goodell had no choice but to suspend him.

 

Just more proof that Goodell is an assh**e who is ruining the game. Now teams are suffering because of this morons idea of what safe football should be :godell:[/quote:ju0d2zup]

Have you considered the fact that most, if not all of the GM's and owners agree with the stance Goodell is taking. He has a ton of support among the various owners. The reality of today's world is that the NFL either has to show they are attempting to limit head injuries, or they will be facing constant legal battles from ex-players who can't even tie their own shoes. The NFL really doesn't have a choice in the matter, they must either show they're trying, or they're going to be sued out the ass.

 

This is my first time looking at this thread. There is too much to catch up on... I do think the OP contradicts a little. He says there's no conspiracy theory, but that the Steelers are being targeted. And that's true, refs are trigger happy when it comes to our defense and the opposite of trigger happy when it comes to our quarterback. I don't think that's a secret and it doesn't even really sound like anyone's disagreeing with it. So if you don't want to call that a conspiracy theory, then don't. I don't think I ever used those words. But it's something that's happening. I guess it's not a conspiracy if it's out in the open, so why don't we just call it a fact? We are being targeted and the rules are not being enforced evenly. Yes, every team gets bad calls thrown its way and loses games because of the refs. I never subscribed to the idea that we got screwed more than other teams when it came to normal stuff. But we are definitely on the losing end of this new wave of unbalance, probably moreso than any other team. That's a fact.

I hear people saying matter-of-factly, "If the NFL gave a fine, then we did something wrong" and "We are not being treated unfairly/There is no conspiracy." But I also hear, "Why whine? So what if we're getting ripped off? Don't whine, it makes you sound like a child" and things to that effect. Don't those contradict? It's like you're saying, "There's nothing wrong with the way we're being treated, and if it's worse than other teams are being treated, we shouldn't complain about that because it makes us Seahawk fans." Forgive me, but I still don't understand that sentence.

I don't know what moron mixes up complaining about legitimately terrible calls with complaining about close correct calls, but "whining" about getting totally ripped off is at least fair, if unbecoming. The Seahawks fans are notoriously stupid for whining about the refs' bad calls, when in fact 5 of their 6 complaints have been completely debunked as good calls (the one remaining had little impact on the game). They were the "victims" of refs throwing flags on penalties that happened to occur on big plays for their team. They like to say that the refs took away every big play they had for some ticky-tack calls, but of course ticky-tack penalties are still penalties (not to mention they were at the point of attack). They say, "Oh come on that was BARELY holding Oh come on he BARELY pushed off in the end zone..." They are stretching for excuses because they laid a clunker in the Super Bowl.

Contrast that with the Giants in the (2002?) Wild Card against SF, or the Steelers in the 2007 Wild Card against Jacksonville, or even something like the Steelers in the 2005 Divisional against the Colts (Troy's pick). All of those teams suffered inexcusably awful calls/non-calls that cost them or could have cost them the game. Those are all games whose outcome was directly affected by terrible officiating -- and I'm not talking about a bad call in the first quarter, I'm talking about calls so big that they literally decided who won and who lost, by themselves. And those calls were so bad that they'd be unacceptable from a high school crew. I'll say it again, if those calls were correct, the other team would have won (the 2005 Steelers managed a win anyway). So here's the question: should fans of the 2002 Giants and 2007 Steelers just have shut up as soon as those games ended, and kept their yaps shut? Are they whiny babies? I guess that's subjective, but I think we should cut them a little slack since they WERE ripped off by the refs. We certainly don't need to tell them to shut up. And I also think if you're the kind of person that can't stand any kind of complaining at all, even when it's totally justified, then maybe you should stay away from the complainy threads of a team's message board when that team is getting screwed over. You do know this is where fans come to vent their feelings about stuff, right? Should we not cheer when we win a big game? That could be considered just as childish as complaining about what is in fact a bad call. If you don't like it, what are you doing here? What are we doing here? Why are we talking about the games? Why do we even watch the games? Why are we fans? My God, this is part of it. And shoot, when it comes to message boards, even those idiots who complain about good calls are part of it. Even people who want Lawrence Timmons to be cut are part of it. Telling passionate fans not to complain on a message board about being screwed over makes me wonder who the child is.

 

College style option football, here we come... (see Tebow and Wildcat). It is not right to define if a person is running the ball based on their position. BOGUS!

 

Did anyone watch the Bengals /Rams game yesterday ???

Fanene put H2H hits on Rams QB not once but TWICE and no flags.

Even Cowher & Boomer made reference to the hits and lack of flags during the half time show. They said James Harrison would have been suspended for those hits. THEY SAID THE RULES ARE SHADOWY RIGHT NOW.

I don't no about conspiracy but I do know that the NFL has a problem. Their actions are tyrannical to say the least. In history it was called "absolute rule". There are no rules right now......whatever the NFL "wants" to do at the moment is what they do.

And if anyone of can't see this.....then either you are blind, stupid, scared to look, or some combination of the 3.

 

Excerpt from the PPG that's relevant to the discussion here:

So you think the Steelers are picked on?
While the league definitely doles out more fines than ever, there's been a sense by many that officials also are tossing more flags on the Steelers. That is not the case. In fact, there may be fewer penalties called.

Going back through some years to the early 1980s, roughly the same number of penalties were called against the Steelers with the over-under being about 100. Last season, the Steelers had 100 called against them. In 1999, it was 119, one year after there were only 79. In 1983, it was 99. So it's up and down but roughly 100 as the median.

However, when they played a 14-game scheduled through the 1977 season, they were called for 122 in 1977 and 111 in 1976.


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11352/11 ... z1gz83puhu

 

So if someone doesn't agree with you, they are blind, stupid, or scared....? Here's another option: maybe they are just more open-minded. Looking at things from a different vantage point, often can offer a different view

 

I did not say the Steelers were being targeted, I said the Steelers play an aggressive style (which I love) that exposes them to more situations where the refs have to make a "judgement call". I also said that the rules are unclear which leads to inconsistent calls. I never said that the calls were all legit. Guess what, refs make bad calls in every game, against every team. What I did say was that I don't think the TEAM is being singled out. If you read any later posts you will see that I do believe that players are not all treated equally when it comes to the enforcement of these rules, a fact that is common to all professional sports.
Yes, I do think that constant references to Goodell's vendetta against the Steelers start to sound childish after a while. I don't think that any sensible adult could believe that the calls made by the refs are a result of some secret plan concocted by Goodell or Craft or Tom Brady. To me, these claims make the Steelers fan base (which I have been a part of my entire life) look like childish whiny fools. I do have an interest in protecting the reputation of this group of people because I am one of them and don't want to have to defend myself on behalf of a bunch of fans who think the NFL is "out to get us".
As to your comment about "this is a MB for us all to complain" and "why are you here". I think of this as a place to talk about football and football players. Ever since the JH penalty all I was seeing were a bunch of "whining" about it. If you were involved in a youth league and lost a game because of a bad call, would you tell the kids "It's not your fault, the refs are out to get you, let's give no credit to the other team for beating us"? I would think a better approach would be to say "We lost today, not because of a bad call, but because we were not able to consistently outplay the other team between the whistles." Which approach would teach the kids to be responsible for their own successes or failures?
Now to address your comment that only a MORON would mix up complaining about legitimately terrible calls with complaining about close correct calls. In my opinion only a foolish crybaby will blame a loss or suspension on the league conspiring against his/her team. I did not start this thread to call anyone out specifically, you came into a thread that I started based on my own opinion and called me a moron. Take some of your own advice about avoiding threads that you don't agree with.