Rigged Championships

[Sonny9]

1. Super Bowl 37 Tampa Bay vs Oakland Raiders
Callahan changes the offense during the week to the same type that Gruden ran the year before when he coached Oakland. Callahan and Gruden both did not like Al Davis. Callahan was fired after the next season. WRers Rice and Brown questioned the game plan change. There is a video of Lynch during the game, in mild disbelief/happines, telling Gruden that they practiced against every play that the Raiders were running.

2. Super Bowl 3 Colts v Jets
Bubba Smith went to his grave saying the game was fixed. Earl Morrall with his 3 first half pics. The flea flicker that always went to Orr in practice didn't go to the wide open Orr and was picked off. Bubba mentioned that it helped get the merger under way. The owners didn't want to keep paying higher and higher salaries

3. NFL Title game 1946 Bears v Giants
Frank Filchock and Merle Hapes, were accused of taking bribes to fix the game. Hapes originally admitted it and was suspended for not reporting the bribe. Filchock denied he did, played in the game and threw 6 interceptions, including a pick six, as his teams lost 24-14. The Bears scored 10 points in the 4th quarter to pull out the win. The funniest part of this is reading a few times that Filchock played well in that game, lol.
I've read that the players stories changed over time. Filchock admitted afterwards he had knowledge of the bribe. Could be the NFL knew but suspending the Giants best offensive weapon would hurt that game.

side note before I get to 4. We all know the NFL is an entertainment business. Close, exciting games drive revenue. We recently saw it in college football when undefeated and #1 ranked Florida State wasn't invited to play in the 4 team playoffs. They were down to their 3rd quarterback and would not be competitive so their game wouldn't get much viewership. They did get blown out in the Orange Bowl

4. 1965 Packer-Colts playoff game.
The wide right that wasn't. The AFL just signed a big TV contract earlier that year. The AFL was now here for good and the NFL was worried. No way the NFL wants to see the Colts, without a Quarterback, play in the championship, against the same team that beat them, in the championship game the year before, by 27.

I think 3 is an obvious fix. The others? Could be

[Brian wolf]

Good "theories"* ... I believe in the possibilities as well except for SB III ... I just don't feel the Colts would have thrown the game and embarrassed themselves like that. Rosenbloom was so upset, it enabled Don Shula to leave the team in 1970.

I believe other games could possibly had been rigged as well, especially from 2017-onward but it's subjective, speculative theory at best, with the games in the books and the champions getting their due.

*Rigged or not, the champions did what it took to win and since the games are officially in the books, the public can't diminish their achievement, although speculation and skepticism, will always run rampant.

[JuggernautJ]

Super Bowl 37 Tampa Bay vs Oakland Raiders
Callahan changes the offense during the week to the same type that Gruden ran the year before when he coached Oakland. Callahan and Gruden both did not like Al Davis. Callahan was fired after the next season. WRers Rice and Brown questioned the game plan change. There is a video of Lynch during the game, in mild disbelief/happines, telling Gruden that they practiced against every play that the Raiders were running.

I don't know that the game was "rigged" but I've always (since it happened) considered Gruden's presence on the Bucs as the most unfair advantage any team ever had in a Championship game (of which I'm aware).
I hadn't heard the bit about Callahan changing the game plan but I do remember that Gruden "played" the part of Rich Gannon on the Scout Team and that the Bucs knew every nuance of the Raiders QB, plays and team.

That game had a lot of impact on the future of many players... Sapp, Brooks and Lynch got their sole championships and subsequently wound up in the Hall of Fame. Perhaps one or more of them might not have had the outcome been different... or at least the wait would've been longer.
Conversely, Tim Brown never did win a ring (and that was his best chance) nor did Gannon... and I wonder if he would've had an outside shot of being in Canton had that been on his resume.

[Brian wolf]

Supposedly, with Robbins at center, the Raiders were going to pound the ball and go straight at the smaller but quicker Bucs defense but once Robbins missed the game, they went back to a passing game plan which suited back-up center Adam Treu.

Even had Callahan not "sabotaged" the Raider's chances--according to Tim Brown--why and the hell would he not change the verbiage and terminology of calls that Jon Gruden had implemented?

Ronde Barber also helped his HOF case with the win. Had Gannon won for Oakland, he still would have had to excel for awhile for HOF consideration but only played two more seasons after the defeat.

[7DnBrnc53]

Supposedly, with Robbins at center, the Raiders were going to pound the ball and go straight at the smaller but quicker Bucs defense but once Robbins missed the game, they went back to a passing game plan which suited back-up center Adam Treu.

Actually, Robbins left because they changed the game plan two days before the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA6KbNw-3TU

We all know the NFL is an entertainment business. Close, exciting games drive revenue.

Screw the NFL.

[Bryan]

1. Super Bowl 37 Tampa Bay vs Oakland Raiders
Callahan changes the offense during the week to the same type that Gruden ran the year before when he coached Oakland. Callahan and Gruden both did not like Al Davis. Callahan was fired after the next season. WRers Rice and Brown questioned the game plan change. There is a video of Lynch during the game, in mild disbelief/happines, telling Gruden that they practiced against every play that the Raiders were running.

This doesn't really take into account how poorly the Raider defense played. Tampa's offense controlled the sticks the entire game. They had 37 minutes of possession in spite of also having three pick-6 plays. I'm not sure if Oakland wins even if their offense plays well.

2. Super Bowl 3 Colts v Jets
Bubba Smith went to his grave saying the game was fixed. Earl Morrall with his 3 first half pics. The flea flicker that always went to Orr in practice didn't go to the wide open Orr and was picked off. Bubba mentioned that it helped get the merger under way. The owners didn't want to keep paying higher and higher salaries

Not sure if Hightower learned detective work at Police Academy. Much like your example in Game 1, Weeb had been the Colts coach for a number of years and knew that team pretty well. Also, if SB III was rigged, wouldn't SB IV have to be rigged as well?

3. NFL Title game 1946 Bears v Giants
Frank Filchock and Merle Hapes, were accused of taking bribes to fix the game.

I don't remember them being accused of taking bribes. I thought they were disciplined for failing to report the 'attempted bribe' to the league office.

4. 1965 Packer-Colts playoff game.
The wide right that wasn't. The AFL just signed a big TV contract earlier that year. The AFL was now here for good and the NFL was worried. No way the NFL wants to see the Colts, without a Quarterback, play in the championship, against the same team that beat them, in the championship game the year before, by 27.

This is really cutting it close for it to be rigged....last play of regulation?

[Sonny9]

I don't remember them being accused of taking bribes. I thought they were disciplined for failing to report the 'attempted bribe' to the league office.

I've read a few different versions. Forgot the "gangsters" name involved but his side was Hapes was bribed and took it while Filchock thought about over night and declined. After the game the "gangster" paid them both from bets he made on the game both took the money. That Paris also offered the players off-season jobs.
Paris was merely the go-between for four members of a wealthy New Jersey bookmaking syndicate. He had courted Hapes for several weeks, wining and dining Merle and his wife.


deleted other comments when everyone can read about it in Coffin Corner 3 https://www.profootballresearchers.org/ ... An-080.pdf

"All sources are agreed that he played his best (as, indeed, he had every reason to do at this point) in the Giants' ten-point loss to the Bears.
This was the precise betting line of Paris and friends; they neither won nor lost their bets. According to football researcher Jim Stewart, who
was present at the game:"

[Sonny9]

This is really cutting it close for it to be rigged....last play of regulation?

2 minutes were left on the clock

[Brian wolf]

Doesn't matter ... Chandler missed the kick, Tunney? got it wrong and GB had new life ... to hell with Matte starting against Cleveland. Matte looked more comfortable throwing the ball in the Loser Bowl against Dallas.

Maybe the NFL didn't want Cleveland winning easily in Baltimore? I feel it would have been closer than many think but could Lyle's and Boyd clamp down on Warfield and Collins ... or Jim Brown?

[GameBeforeTheMoney]

Super Bowl 3 - in Don Maynard's autobiography, he wrote about Namath watching film late at night before the game and knocking on Maynard's wall (he was next door) and saying, "Don, we can beat these guys." I was lucky to get to know Don a bit and he often told me that nobody in that locker room considered it an upset. They were highly confident going into that game. I also have talked to players that have told me that Johnny Sample played a role in recognized certain aspects of the Colts defense they could exploit. Lastly, Upton Bell told me he was with Jimmy Orr on the bus on the way to the game and Orr said, "I hope Earl (Morrall) doesn't wake up and go back to being an average quarterback." Morrall played way over his head that season. So, at least some in the Colts organization believed losing was a possibility.

1965 Playoff - NFL rules to this day state that if any part of the ball goes over the goalpost, the kick is good. I've talked to Mr. Tunney about this call in the past few years, and he stands by it. The kick went was way wide by the back of the end zone, but at the front of the end zone, it's possible that it barely went over the goal post. And like someone else pointed out, it was very late in the game. Highly unlikely that a fix would get pulled off in that fashion. Also, it's not too different than the Rich Karlis kick that won the 86 AFC Championship Game - at least from my vantage point. And, especially based on the Browns scoring a late TD with Dennis Smith slipping and falling on coverage, the Drive, and the fact the Browns were stopped by Karl Mecklenburg's great play on the first overtime drive, there isn't any evidence of that being a fix.

The 1946 championship - Bert Bell took quite a bit of action before and after that game - including hiring former FBI agents to investigate possible incidents. Bell took that matter very seriously and as someone else said, the suspensions were basically for not reporting that they had been offered bribes. If someone has found corroborated concrete evidence of either of them accepting, that would be an important find. One person saying something - although that's interesting, drawing a conclusion as serious as a fix, IMHO there should be a higher standard to be met within a researching community. There would need to be multiple credible sources.