No, the NFL did not tell the Lions to false start on purpose
Please stop believing everything on the internet
The internet is kind of ruining everyone’s brains. Back in the day, there were like one or two conspiracy theorists in town, and everyone just kind of made fun of them. Now, almost everyone believes what they see on the internet. That includes things that affect the Detroit Lions. Things like this:
The NFL did not direct the Lions to false start on purpose, no matter what this dumb video tells you
Ok, this is actually really simple, what’s going on here. The guy in the teal NFL polo, making the false start sign, is not actually making the false start sign. At least not for him. The teal polo guys are field communicators. They are a link between the officials on the field and the replay center.
He is not making a false start signal that says to the players on the field that the NFL wants them to do a false start. He is signaling to the officials that the game can continue on and that the previous play will not be reviewed, and a TV timeout won’t be taken. If you watch the Lions on Week 18 against the Bears, you will see a guy in teal do this multiple times per game.
Beyond that, let’s really think here, people. What is gained by fixing this game? Both of these teams are out of the playoffs; the game itself was really bad, and nobody cared about it ahead of time, knowing that both teams were pretty much out. You might say something about Vegas, but the game went totally against the spread and over/under. Like, there was just no actual reason to fix this game, and if they did, they did a really bad job at it.
What you’re seeing is one platform that doesn’t understand the innerworkings of the game, putting out a video and going viral for their lack of knowledge. It’s not that they’re dumb, it’s that they just don’t know, and now they’re spreading the fact that they just don’t know to other people who don’t know, and this is how a conspiracy theory is born. It happens that fast.