If you did not see the game last night between the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers, oops, Philadelphia Eagles, skip ahead in this video to 3:07 to see what I am writing about.
The game followed a pattern seen throughout this NFL season of late-game comebacks and nail-biting finishes. In this game the Bills were down 13-0 when they scored in the 4th quarter, but missed the extra point! That’s the first time this year for their very reliable kicker, Matt Prater. They then got the ball back with very little time left, and scored again! They only needed to kick an extra point to tie the game and send it into overtime, which I view as the natural coaching decision. Instead they opted to go for a two-point conversion. OK, many things can justify that decision. On the two-point conversion, Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen has a man not just open, but wide open so that he only need loft the ball to complete a pass and win the game. Instead, he muffs the throw, hitting the turf three yards ahead of the runner. It was not natural, and he’s too seasoned to have blown it.
Allen in the aftermath is shown mouthing the f-bomb and tossing his helmet in disgust. I can understand that, as he did as ordered, but did not like following that order. I think that part of was genuine.
Jake the Awake will have fun with this one. This link is to his list of ten obviously scripted plays in week 16 of the NFL schedule. Week 17 will be along soon. Stay tuned to Jake, not POM. He’s probably laughing as I write this, so obvious is the Allen failed pass.
Years ago the New England Patriots were caught filming their opponent’s sideline for the purpose of stealing signs. That’s not illegal, but the NFL does not allow it, and levied a hefty fine on the Patriots. Maybe it was real. A New York Jets season ticket holder was disgruntled, and sued the NFL for theft of his entertainment purchase, or something like that, a legal challenge to the league’s authority to cheat on game outcomes. The judge ruled that the season ticket entitled the fan to a seat in the stadium, and nothing else. There is no right to a fair contest.
There is no problem with the league scripting outcomes. It is entertainment. As long as individual players are not bribed, it is legal. They are just doing what they are paid to do. Josh Allen, no doubt, knows this, and in the wake of the muffed pass, was unhappy about what the job demanded.
A few weeks back the Denver Broncos played the Las Vegas Raiders, and in the 4th quarter with no time left were behind 24-14. The Raiders were driving, but the drive petered, and they were down to fourth down – time to run one play, maybe get a Hail Mary touchdown. Instead, they opted to kick a field goal! Time ran out, and the final score was 24-17. The Broncos were favored by 7-1/2 points. The field goal, useless and unnecessary, cost bettors millions.
We’ve covered it before. Professional sports are rigged, as are, no doubt, college sports, now more professional than ever. Now that gambling is legal in most states, bettors are wagering on the most arcane matters, in baseball what the next pitch will be, in football, whether it is run or pass, thrown for a completion or not. It’s very easy to rig games in all sports, as players are so skilled that they can deliberately muff shots or miss passes and yet look like they are trying. What Allen did was not common, to deliberately miss by so much. Maybe it was silent protest. Usually they are not so obvious about it. In baseball, hitters are so good that if they know what type pitch is coming, they can usually make solid contact. This leads to exciting finishes in World Series games, late home runs and the like.
Last Thanksgiving we sat around the dinner table and were asked to list the things were are thankful for. I hate that sort of thing, being a curmudgeon at heart. When it came my turn I made note that I am thankful for good health, that I take no drugs of any kind, legal or otherwise, that I am unvaccinated, and that I do not drink or gamble. After I said that I realized that this made me the most boring man on the planet.
Such a boring man who writes on a blog and expects that people will read it! Good Lord, the ego. What insulated un-self-aware ignorance!
Piece of Mindful 
They were playing the Eagles
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“Les Visible”; really?
There is a real dude of the actual name. Has blog, is published author… are you him?
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Yeah, pretty much. I hope that don’t smoke up your mirror
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I own The Dark Splendor. It sticks in my head by virtue of your accurate portrayal of evil people and the vivid description of martial arts devastating actions.
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One nit- if Josh Allen can fake a bad pass, I think he can fake crocodile tears. As it turns out, he recently married a singer/actress named Hailee Steinfeld, so he is definitely show people, and if ever there was a beard marriage arranged between two bloodlines this looks like it. Usually it’s the swarthy asiatic who chases down the shiksa blonde bombshell, but in this case, the genders have been reversed. Now if there are any children produced by this bearded celebrity couple, you can bet your boots they’re IVF donations from both ends because if that woman is interested in dudes, I’m a hottentot. (Introducing a new acronym: NUO- Not Under Oath.)
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Well, Allen and Steinfeld got engaged on 11/22, and he recently signed a $330 million deal with the Bills. His lineage is completely private, as is hers. A little spooky.
Hard Knocks featured the Bills this year, and I only watched a couple of episodes but had a funny feeling about him, hard to describe, somewhat awkward and camera-aware, controlled emoter, he seemed kind of a pretty boy for an NFL team. But his on-field play is very good.
In the years 1991-94 the Bills lost four consecutive Superbowls. I wonder if Allen will carry forward that tradition.
John Elway passed on Allen in the 2018 NFL draft, but he was one of those famous players who fulfilled the Peter Principle, rising to a level where he had no ability and staying there too long. It is hard to fire legends. He took the team to new lows.
Hard to write about the NFL after hearing Jake the Asshole say that every player and coach is in on the rigging game. There is that old saying that someone would talk, an but secrets are kept with Masons and soldiers. Hard to imagine the whole of the NFL is in on the fix.
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I just found your blog recently and I really enjoy how your mind works. It is very difficult to find thinkers which aren’t limited hangouts but I find you to be genuine. I followed the Carolina Panthers with my mother from their inaugural season right up to their superb owl in 2015. That game was where I realized it was fake. Cam Newton laid down like a hen awaiting its rooster in that game. In hindsight, the emasculating outfit which Cam wore getting into Denver was the tell. I don’t believe that these “men” merely pretend to play an honest game for big money. They also forfeit their manhood to the shotcallers and prominently display this fact. I appreciate your work!
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Good reference … The Cam Newton stuff happened right before my eyes and I did not see it. It had to be pointed out by others. I am part of a group mind, stumbling as I go, pulled along by others of the same bent.
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Not to mention that Super Bowl 50 was played during the 50th anniversary year of the Black Panther Party, which was founded by Huey P. Newton, who died in 1989—the same year Cam Newton was born. The game was played in the San Francisco Bay Area, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party, and featured Beyoncé’s halftime show, which explicitly used Black Panther–themed imagery.
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Within the last year or two Lamar Jackson, the MVPQB of Baltimore, threw a shit-fit on the sidelines after a goal-line fumble quashed the Ravens’ playoff drive. I would think if anyone was read-in first it would be the MVP quarterbacks like Jackson and Allen. The lineman have such a short window to perform on the field that they probably don’t need to be on point play by play with deceptions. Cornerbacks and safeties are probably vetted for “service”- if you recall, safety Damar Hamlin of Buffalo played his part to a T. Beyond that I’m sure the refs are hot-wired to Vegas and are told when to steer the narrative of each game in a particular direction with their flags in response to the in-game online betting patterns.
As for Steinfeld, she’s portrayed as something of a mutt. I spotted a black line in her first film, True Grit*, with her flat nose and coloring. A little black, a lot of white/jewish and, most intriguingly, a little Filipino. If that’s the case, then she may be linked to either Russian or Spanish nobility through the Philippines, and that may put her within arms reach genealogically of Natalie Wood.
*Forgive the following if you can but there are two scenes in the Coen brothers’ remake that strongly imply that the two men helping her search for her father’s killer had sex with the 14 year old Mattie Ross. She and Matt Damon first meet in the bedroom they share and the morning after they quarrel like a couple, she appearing to be soaked in sweat. Near the end, Rooster Cogburn is racing with her on a horse to save her from a snake bite (no deeper meaning there!) but the staging could be read as her being subjected to rather painful sodomy. Given how precise the Coen brothers are in shooting their films, there is no way they missed the implications of such imagery.
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Well, you know me well enough after all these years to know I’d never interfere. I found another comment like yours in Spam, and no visible reason for it to be there. That’s troublesome.
I spent part of yesterday fighting with an insurance co … wait, not what I meant to say. I was charting out the lives of ML and EB, and without any intent of seeing any patterns, just letting the marbles fall out of the bag. With ML throughout his life and including an alleged prison stint, he is hobnobbing with important people, so it is a good way of seeing who is juiced, who not. With EB not much of note but there is a photo of him and Jimmy Carter, and we know with JC that height is measured very accurately, 5’9-1/2″, so with each standing erect, it’s easy to see that EB is 6’3″. That is but one tell. It is starting to be fun. EB is showered with awards, like when Janis J reviewers swarming around her praising her manic work , which was unremarkable. The Janis J parallel is interesting to me, as I am seeing a conveyor belt of people who end up in journalism, some high profile, telling me that journalism is nothing but acting on a public stage with the earlier lives training how to behave on that stage.
And, this will interest you, but a regular reader here (he’s actually all over the place, a really bright guy) sparked new interest in Stu Sutcliffe in me. Back in 2016 when I met MM I was chastised for using face chops, as Internet photos were, I was told, unreliable. Instead, and I did not think to see he used the same photos!, we had to rely on his remarkable eyes. He’s not untalented in this regard, but makes mistakes, as when he ID’d Taylor Swift’s mom as two different people. But whatever he achieves, I do the same with the chops. I just do not claim to be infallible. I once grabbed a full frontal face of Patty Tate (formerly Sharon Tate) from a live interview, and ran the two … exact precise match. I sent it to MM, no appreciable interest, but he recently, ran some stuff about her with the same result, this time with his magic eye. Anyway, I am going to redo Sutcliffe using chops and incorporate a Reddit thread in which naive followers mention Sutcliffe’s proclivity in art prior to his death. I always thought of his AW work as deliberate defacing crap, but maybe it takes talent to make deliberate crap. Follow along as you will, your insight always welcome.The Sutcliffe stuff c9 es first, as I’ve a boatload to do on ML/EB. I km9w not to let loose too early on this stuff, as I make not only mistakes, but oversights, not in the controlled sense of that word.
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If Jimmy’s the standard don king is also at least 6’3″.
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I lost the thread here. Who are EB and ML and AW?
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S little inside baseball, a future post, Malcolm Little (X), Ed Bradley, Andy Warhol.
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Tyrone – Speaking of movies.. I just watched Licorice Pizza and it’s got a bunch of Hollywood lore and references.. apparently a lot of cameos from celebrity children, not just the lead actor. Just wondered if you had seen it and had any insights, since you seem to have some interest/ background in that topic. It seems to be a bit of a parody or riff on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, incidentally.. or maybe both filmmakers (PT Anderson and Tarantino) were assigned similar themes to address?
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I haven’t seen it but I’ll look into it if i can bootleg it. His most recent, Neverending Battles or whatever was okay-ish. Sean Penn was possessed as a right wing monster. Oscar worthy.
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I’ve been wanting to see that one.. I don’t have good torrent-fu though, so probably just wait till it shows up at the library.
Licorice Pizza is a very flawed movie, but interesting.. the lead, Hoffman’s son Cooper, does not really convince as a go-getter young entrepreneur, although he is good at being un-self-conscious on camera. The female lead is persuasive as a lost, searching young woman.
The “story” is this picaresque, random mess, shaggy dog story. When I first watched a year ago it annoyed me and came across as a pointless mess. On rewatching, I see all the parody (?) or riffing on Once Upon a Time, and more intrigued by the whole thing, trying to decipher the puzzle of it, since I think he does have some point or ideas buried in its seeming randomness.
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You don’t have to use torrents fyi. I found several channels on a site I frequent which has the above film discussed. Here is one:
https://old.bitchute.com/video/pd1zufR0oTaQ/
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Thanks.. torrent just my clueless shorthand, I don’t know all the lingo/ options.. maybe that would work for me although with my funky internet setup, physical media is usually much preferable for anything that’s processing power intensive.
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I thought Allen’s throw was missed on purpose as well. He’s too good to make a throw like that. What about the Ravens kicker missing the 44 yard field goal against the Steelers. He wears the number 33. Attempted 33 field goals this season.
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Nice comment!
I’ve enjoyed watching football over the years. I used to like baseball, but that game is so poorly structured that it is a wonder that small market teams don’t just fold their tents. The Dodgers spent $1.18 billion on free agents in 2024, while most small market franchises are barely worth that much. The NFL brains figured out that competitive balance was the key to riches, so that in theory every franchise can afford top talent and have a shot at a championship. Of course outcomes are rigged to keep it interesting. Josh Allen’s clumsy pass? Hard to explain if not deliberate, but the guy getting open told me that not all players are in on it. That clunker was too obvious. Jake the Awake is wrong on that part. Owners, referees, players are all part of a good thing and are too smart to mess with it. They just have to hide it better.
It’s always piqued my curiosity that even suffering low draft picks, the Yankees could always land top prospects like Jeeter and Judge. Pete Rose, not a Ted Williams-like super athlete, always had pitches to hit. The key in baseball is to know what pitch is coming. I wonder if Rose was always keyed in (Reds, A’s now 34 years on the outs.) But beyond that, small market franchises barely survive and seldom win. It makes the game predictable and boring. When Covid hit, and the Cincinnati Reds were playing to empty stadiums, I thought “Well, nothing new there.”
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