12-13-2017, 02:46 AM
(12-12-2017, 04:43 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: I'm not on board the conspiracy train. Though, i do believe that teams that win consistently are given 'the benefit of the doubt' when it comes to officials and how they call games. I'd chalk it up more to human nature than anything--more sub-conscious than conscious. And i wouldn't say it's just the Steelers either. Across the board, more often than not and especially in high-profile games, the more consistently good teams get the positive side of the call over the mediocre to bad teams.
Recent Bengals/Steelers game examples; Martavus Bryant supposed TD catch in the playoff game. Uzomah non-TD catch in the game last year(?), the Boyd fumble in the same game. If there's a close call that can't really be conclusively overturned on replay, the initial call will usually favor the better team.
One thing that goes along with that though is, the better teams are usually better for a reason. They're more tested in tight situations and they have better players that perform better in crucial situations.
It's a combination of those two things.
Totally agree with your last two paragraphs.
And I agree that the reputation of a team can have a psychological effect on refs, but I also think that it can have a psychological effect on fans' perceptions. Good teams are simply in position to win more often, whether they get breaks or not. But when they do get those breaks and still do what's necessary to win (which they do more often than bad teams because they're good) it seems like favoritism (intended or otherwise). But when a bad team gets a break and still loses (which they do more often than good teams because they're bad), no one remembers the break.
Case in point - you all are (rightly) pissed off over the iffy holding call that brought back one of your TDs in the last CIN-PIT game. But most of you have already forgotten the Steeler TD return called back on a similarly ticky-tack call. You got almost exactly the same break as we did, but because your team lost (which they do more often than the Steelers this year), the memory of the bad break is far more prominent than the memory of the good one, thus creating the overall perception that the refs favor the Steelers, when an objective view tells a different story.
Like you said though, it's not one or the other. Both dynamics are at play most of the time.
