No, the Super Bowl isn’t rigged — just enjoy this Chiefs-Eagles showdown

The Athletic has live coverage of Chiefs vs Eagles in Super Bowl LIX, and Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance.

NEW ORLEANS — Happy Super Sunday, and welcome to our epic showdown in the Big Easy, a battle for football supremacy between the NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles and the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs. And, of course, the eight officials (seven on the field, one in the replay booth) who will insidiously aid the two-time defending Super Bowl champs.

As mandated by the NFL office — and as part of a secret conspiracy involving commissioner Roger Goodell, the owners who pay and control him, Taylor Swift, every woke individual in America, DEI proponents, (incongruously) Elon Musk, ESPN, the Dallas Mavericks front office, the military-industrial complex, Big Pharma, all seven of the NFL’s official gambling partners, Mexico and Canada (did I miss anyone?) — the fix is in for Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and the Chiefs.

Mahomes is going to Disney World. Kelce will be onstage celebrating in front of the Swifties. And there’s nothing any of us can do about it, because we’ve all been duped, and the outcome is essentially scripted.

All right, folks — deep breaths. Though I’ve never been accused of not relentlessly sticking with a bit, it’s time to take off the tin-foil hats and get real.

No, NFL games aren’t rigged. Yes, dubious calls happen — some of which benefit Mahomes, one of the most transcendent players the sport has ever seen, and the team coached by Andy Reid, one of the most accomplished men in the history of his profession.

The real conspiracy is that our football-watching culture has devolved to this point — where a significant slice of the populace refuses to accept outcomes it considers loathsome and rushes to blame dark, powerful, string-pullers in the shadows.

Yet here we are.

If you watch Super Bowl LIX at a bar or house party, there’s a decent chance at least one person in attendance will voice the sentiment — preemptively or otherwise — that the Chiefs get favorable treatment from the officials. They might point to specific examples, such as the controversial fourth-down spot after a quarterback sneak by Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen in the AFC Championship Game two weeks ago, or a pair of pivotal personal-foul flags triggered by Houston Texans hits on Mahomes in the divisional round. They may even throw numbers around, citing Chiefs penalties relative to those of their opponents during Mahomes’ remarkable seven-season run as a starter, one which has resulted in five Super Bowl appearances and two overtime defeats in the AFC Championship Game.

Some of this is intellectually lazy. Not all penalties are created equal, and some teams are more adept at playing the game in a manner that avoids infractions. And, let’s be honest, some of it is just visceral: Many people are sick of seeing the Chiefs win, just as they were fed up with the New England Patriots’ success before that. Throw in the fact that Kelce’s girlfriend is perhaps the biggest celebrity on the planet and there are all the ingredients for a persecution complex.

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If you’re one of those people, I’m not here to talk you out of your feelings — fandom, at its core, is irrational anyway — but I do feel it’s appropriate to point out the absurdity of the premise.

Let’s start with motive: The NFL, as an entity, has no incentive to ensure that the Chiefs succeed. The league operates partly under a set of principles that ensure that each owner shares in the riches while fixing costs — essentially guaranteeing profit (combined with an appreciation in franchise value) for all.

The game is rigged in this sense: The owners of the 32 teams all win, no matter who hoists the Lombardi Trophy.

Goodell, and others at the league office, serve at the pleasure of the owners and don’t benefit from any specific team’s success.

And while the whole big market/small market thing doesn’t really apply in the NFL, thanks to said revenue sharing, let’s just say that if one were conspiring to put a team that always wins in a specific location, Kansas City is not exactly a marquee metropolis.

Sorry to break it to you: Patrick Mahomes has been hoisting Lombardi Trophies because he’s really good. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

Even if you somehow still believe there’s a concerted push to make the Missouri-Kansas border the center of the pro football universe, there’s another huge flaw in the theory: execution.

I’ll try to say this as nicely as I can. Though there are some truly accomplished powerbrokers in the league office, there are others who are regarded by people in the NFL community — and even some owners — as not the best and the brightest.

This is a league that couldn’t even keep its plans to remove “End Racism” from being stenciled onto the Super Bowl end zone border under wraps. The notion that Goodell and his lieutenants could conjure, pull off and keep secret a blatant effort to boost one franchise’s fortunes at the expense of others is quite aspirational.

Yes, I’m questioning some people’s competence, just as many of you routinely question the competence of the officials. Yet understand that if you’re buying into the conspiracy, you’re accusing the same officials whose competence you question of being able to execute a plan that, at times, results in the Chiefs winning by a very, very narrow margin of victory.

Seems plausible.

Look, I get that the officiating isn’t always perfect. I’m not one of those people who believe it should be; I’m against the increased proliferation of replay and trying to get every single call exactly right. The officials on the field should do their best to call it as they see it, and replay should be used to correct egregious, objective errors. I can live with the occasional bad call, as long as the overall context feels fair.

Ideally, an unmerited flag or blatantly missed call will be one of many things that impact a game, and not the deciding factor. Sometimes, it can decide a championship. Remember that time in New Orleans six years ago when the Saints would have almost certainly celebrated under confetti, but the officials disregarded an obvious pass-interference penalty, allowing Mahomes and the Chiefs to win in overtime?

Oh wait — it was actually Jared Goff and the Los Angeles Rams who benefited from that infamous officiating gaffe in the 2018 NFC Championship Game.

It’s not unusual for fans to view less obvious gaffes as unconscionable. After a heartbreaking defeat, the fallback for many is to believe their team is being slighted. Two years ago, following a third-down defensive holding call that allowed the Chiefs to drain the clock and kick a walk-off field goal in Super Bowl LVII, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie believed his team had been screwed. The player who was flagged for the hold, James Bradberry, disagreed, telling reporters, “It was a holding. I tugged his jersey. I was hoping they would let it slide.”

We must also acknowledge that the NFL created an atmosphere for conspiracy theories when, in the wake of the 2018 Supreme Court decision that overturned a law that effectively banned commercial sports betting in most states, the league changed directions like Barry Sanders in his prime and embraced legalized gambling. It’s one thing for fans to bemoan a defeat they feel was stolen from them; people who’ve wagered and lost are even more susceptible to jumping to the worst-case scenario.

I’m not naïve enough to believe that there’s no way gambling overtones could lead to a full-fledged cheating scandal in the NFL. Any player, coach or official with a gambling debt, or who’s enticed by a scheme to make money on a “sure thing,” could be susceptible to committing an act that tarnishes the integrity of the game.

However, an entire operation designed to benefit the Chiefs seems like a high-risk, far-fetched way of doing illicit business.

Conspiracy theories related to the NFL are nothing new. Remember the last time New Orleans hosted a Super Bowl, when a power outage derailed the Baltimore Ravens’ momentum, and the San Francisco 49ers very nearly pulled off a wild comeback?

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Were some convinced that the league turned out the lights to allow Colin Kaepernick (feels weird reading that now, huh?) and his teammates to hoist the Lombardi Trophy? Absolutely.

Were they tripping? I think you know the answer.

While I reject conspiracy theories, I am open to the possibility that there are subconscious forces that surface in pivotal moments. Does Mahomes, as one of the sport’s luminous stars, get more favorable calls than, say, Aidan O’Connell or Will Levis?

As in any sport, we can’t completely reject this premise.

Anecdotally, that often seemed to be the case during Tom Brady’s storied career. Remember when Brady led the New England Patriots to a comeback victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC Championship Game? The Jags had six penalties for 98 yards, and had a potential Myles Jack defensive touchdown whistled dead. The Pats were penalized once for 10 yards — on a kickoff.

I would also note that in their two most charged head-to-head meetings, Brady seemed to get the calls that Mahomes couldn’t, from the infamous Dee Ford offsides penalty (nullifying a game-clinching Brady interception) in the 2018 AFC Championship Game to the lopsided first-half tally in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Super Bowl LV victory over Kansas City (the Chiefs were penalized a record eight times for 95 yards; the Bucs were flagged just once for 5 yards).

Then again, such examples presume that each team’s on-field behavior is similar, discounting the possibility that one is better than the other at — you know — following the rules.

After the Chiefs’ 32-29 victory over the Bills in the AFC Championship Game, veteran receiver DeAndre Hopkins and I discussed the perception that the officials are helping Kansas City win.

“It’s easy to say that about anyone who’s winning,” Hopkins said. “They don’t understand the preparation, the way we practice, the way we’re coached. I’ve been a few places now, and I’ve never had coaching like this. We put a lot into this, and we’re very, very precise.”

Sometimes, there are even hard, persuasive numbers to support the sense that a team is being shafted over time. Here in New Orleans, they know all about that.

During a four-season span from 2018 to 2021, the Saints finished 30th, 31st, 32nd and tied for 31st in terms of penalties called (both accepted and declined) against opponents. A Saints source was told by someone familiar with statistical probabilities that the chance of finishing in the bottom three of the league in that category for four consecutive years was 0.007725 percent.

Did the league have it out for Sean Payton? Again, I reject the notion that there was a coordinated effort to impair the success of one team. However, in this case — and given the aforementioned 2018 NFC Championship Game fiasco — I can at least understand the paranoia.

Now here’s one more thing to consider before the Chiefs and Eagles play for a Lombardi: Given all the noise, might the officials subconsciously swing the other way and be hesitant to make game-changing calls that work in Kansas City’s favor? Human nature suggests that, in an effort not to be viewed as unfair, these officials might err on the side of caution in such situations, possibly ignoring an Eagles infraction they’d typically call.

If anything, all this conspiracy noise might have the same effect as a college basketball coach shamelessly working the refs in the hope of getting a favorable call later in the game. Perhaps it’s the Eagles who’ll actually have the folks in striped shirts on their side.

Could Nick Sirianni working the officials help prevent the Chiefs from landing a favorable call? Perhaps. (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

More likely, the Super Bowl will come down to — wait for it — which team plays better. Sorry to spoil the storyline, but it should make your Super Sunday viewing experience more enjoyable.

My advice is to enjoy the game, consume copious amounts of calories and try not to think about having to wake up for work Monday morning — and avoid getting caught up in the conspiratorial lunacy.

And if Sunday’s clash plays out like most Chiefs postseason games during the Mahomes era, show some respect. It’ll be because the quarterback and his teammates are exceptionally cool under pressure, and not because of some sinister script.

Trust me, it’s better this way. Just because Mahomes goes to Disney World doesn’t mean you have to go down that ridiculous rabbit hole.

(Top illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; photo of Ronald Torbert: Diamond Images / Getty Images)