It's not scripted and I don't think the Refs are instructed to call games in certain ways. But I think it's naive to think with Sports betting as big as it is in the US that the Refs aren't biased at times. It's either that or the Refs are extremely inconsistent. I think it may be several different issues that compound upon themselves. Football is a hard game to ref at times, several different rules and nuances you have to know and unlike other sports every single player is doing something during(usually engaged with an opposing player) every single play. I think the solution is to dial back the rules a bit, simplify them and to add additional refs and retrain them and pay them more money. On top of that, it should be a full time gig with training during the off-season. Refs should be held accountable for bad calls and they should be encouraged to let things go before they get whistle happy. The main issue is Refs are clearly having an impact on games and that's never a good thing, especially when calls are extremely questionable and are subject to personal interpretation of the rules.

Now it's possible the NFL wrote the rules this way so they could call in fixes, but I'm not entirely convinced of that. I just think the whole thing has gotten bloated and reactionary rules have been added and things are just a huge mess at the moment. Very little faith they'll attempt to clean it up since the NFL is gradually being run into the ground at this point.

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