Prophetic video games and fixes: the Super Bowl XLIX conspiracies ranked
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Version 0 of 1. Conspiracy theories swirled about Super Bowl XLIX before it even began, from the breathless coverage of the DeflateGate scandal to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll’s alleged 9/11 truther ideology. Yet after Sunday’s mystifying denouement – when Carroll opted for a high-risk pass instead of a run play needing one yard for a championship-sealing touchdown – a whole new round of suspicions and hypothoses have taken root. We’ve sorted through them so you don’t have to. Carroll wanted Wilson, not Lynch, to be the hero The thinking is Carroll, believing the Seahawks would have no problem gaining the one yard they needed to clinch the championship, would rather have boy-wonder Russell Wilson been the Super Bowl hero than media-averse Lynch. Optics aside, both players are due new contracts – and the Seahawks would theoretically be better off paying massive dollars to a pre-prime franchise quarterback who just turned 26 than a running back who will be 29 on opening day. Proponents have included Tom Ley of Deadspin and Dave Zirin of the Nation, who quoted one unnamed Seahawk as saying: “Can’t believe it. We all saw it. They wanted it to be Russ. They didn’t want Marshawn to be the hero.” Paranoia ranking: 1.5 tin foil hats (out of 5) LeGarrette Blount Blount enjoyed a successful 2013 season with New England, capped by a four-touchdown, 166-yard romp in an AFC divisional playoff win over the Colts that landed him the cover of Sports Illustrated. He signed with Pittsburgh during the offseason but his relations with the team grew increasingly frayed after he was arrested on marijuana-related charges. When the Steelers cut him on 19 November, he was re-signed by the Patriots that same week, leading some to believe he’d engineered his release because he knew he had a job waiting for him in New England. When pressed on the issue at Super Bowl media day, he was less than convincing. Paranoia ranking: 2.5 tin foil hats (out of 5) The fix was in The idea of a rigged Super Bowl might sound preposterous on the surface, but the Tim Donaghy and Calciopoli scandals are proof positive that match-fixing is feasible on the biggest stages. A tweet from the the ominously named @RiggedNFL that predicted Sunday’s teams back in Septmber gained traction during Sunday’s game. The Patriots and Seahawks will play in the 2015 Super Bowl. (Read the attached picture). pic.twitter.com/w0pVteOVgq @RiggedNFL then tweeted yeterday that the Patriots would win by six in overtime. Since the prediction was incorrect this particular conspiracy was nipped in the bud. A further tweet revealed showed the tweets for the farcical sham they were: I was just tryna promote my mixtape fam. Paranoia ranking: N/A A disquieting effect Considering the Patriots had just won their first title in a decade, New England’s reserved clubhouse demeanor was conspicious. The Guardian’s Paolo Bandini described an “eerily calm” in the Patriots’ locker room in the moments after Sunday’s heart-stopping win. Might an awareness by Bill Belichick’s charges of forthcoming repercussions from Deflategate have created a sense of foreboding in the New England trenches? Paranoia ranking: 4 tin foil hats (out of 5) Madden pulls the strings On 26 January, EA Sports released a video predicting Super Bowl XLIX using its top-selling Madden NFL 15 video game to simulate the result. Not only did the developer nail the prediction down to the final score – New England 28, Seattle 24 – but it even had the Patriots rallying to win from a 24-14 deficit. Obviously, EA Sports rigged the Super Bowl. Paranoia ranking: 5 tin foil hats (out of 5) |