The Kansas City Chiefs are preparing for Super Bowl 59 and a main story surrounding them, once again, is that they’ve benefitted from favorable officiating. #NFLRigged has come to the forefront of social media as fans argue over whether the fix is in for the Chiefs, and compilations have been put together of calls going Kansas City’s way.
Whether you believe it or not, there’s a real discussion that needs to be had about controversial calls and the ever-increasing presence of sports gambling. NFL legend, Troy Aikman, recently commented about necessary changes he thinks the NFL needs to make to its officiating and replay review process.
Troy Aikman Calls Out NFL Review Process and How It Affects Gambling
38 states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports betting in some form. Rules and restrictions vary from state to state, but more people than ever before can legally gamble on games.
From the inception of the NFL until 2018, gambling was never acknowledged or encouraged by NFL leadership. The league didn’t want to risk any conflicts of interest from its players, coaches, and personnel members — and for a long time, the policy worked.
The Supreme Court made a landmark ruling in 2018 that rescinded a federal ban on sports gambling and gave power to individual states regarding betting. Since that ruling, the NFL has partnered with betting entities such as Caesars, FanDuel, and DraftKings. The Raiders even moved to Las Vegas. In a short time frame, the league has fully embraced gambling.
Aikman’s comments bring up two major points the NFL should be concerned with. First, the league is being perceived more and more as fixing games. Second, with more money being legally bet on NFL games, the league owes it to fans to be 100% accurate.
Powerful: Troy Aikman says the NFL must make sure the refs make the right calls for the fans who gamble on the games throughout the season:
“There’s a lot of money that’s changing hands with these calls. I think that we owe it to the fans that we get it right and I think we’re… pic.twitter.com/8NEZxE4Rs8
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) January 30, 2025
Aikman said, “There’s a lot of money that’s changing hands with these calls. I think that we owe it to the fans that we get it right and I think we’re at a point in time where we can.” He was on the call for the AFC Divisional Round matchup between Kansas City and Houston where multiple questionable unnecessary roughness calls went against the Texans and extended drives for the Chiefs.
The following week, Kansas City was once again at the center of officiating issues as a deep pass to Xavier Worthy was upheld, and a controversial spot on fourth down ended a Buffalo drive.
One or two calls do not ultimately determine the outcome of games, but they certainly affect how each team operates from that point forward. That is where Aikman believes the NFL has to improve, get the call correct the first time, or have the power to change it so the game plays out as it was intended.
He continued with, “We can get it more right. So that was really my position in just trying to lean on the NFL and say, ‘Hey, we gotta fix this. We gotta address it in the offseason.’” The integrity of the game has been called into question and Aikman wants changes so that doesn’t happen going forward.