Teams benefit from missed calls all the time. That does not mean there is some league wide conspiracy that favors certain teams over others. That is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence to confirm. Any journalist that could prove such a conspiracy would win the Pulitzer Prize, as this would surely be one of the biggest scandals in professional sports history.
What is more likely - teams are successful because they are the most talented and prepared, or because the games are fixed?
For a Patriots conspiracy to be true, the following would also have to be true:
A) The NFL favors the Patriots for some reason over more popular and larger market teams. (in fact the NFL has treated them harshly for various offences - fines and loss of draft picks).
B) Hundreds (if not thousands) of NFL officials and staff would have to be in on the conspiracy. No conspiracy that requires that many actors can succeed.
What is far more likely - individual calls and anecdotes confirm our own biases against certain teams.
Blaming refs is loser talk, and a method of finding control over outcomes we don't like. I'm guilty of it too.
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