“They want Swifties to watch the Super Bowl” – NFL putting referee Shawn Smith deliberately for the Ravens-Chiefs AFC Championship Game triggers WILD reactions on social media

This Sunday, the Chiefs are scheduled to take on the Ravens in a tough road playoff game.

“They want Swifties to watch the Super Bowl” – NFL putting referee Shawn Smith deliberately for the Ravens-Chiefs AFC Championship Game triggers WILD reactions on social media

Lamar Jackson (L- Imago), Shawn Smith (M- X), and Patrick Mahomes (R- Imago)

This Sunday, the Baltimore Ravens, led by their star quarterback, Lamar Jackson, are scheduled to go against the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game. The exciting matchup between two top teams has created a lot of buzz among the fans. Amidst this, the league appointing Shawn Smith as the referee for the crucial game has fueled the controversy that the NFL is favoring the Chiefs.

The NFL recently appointed Shawn Smith as the referee for the Chiefs-Ravens game in M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore. According to numbers, Smith seems to tend to favor the road teams. And on Sunday, the Chiefs will be the away team against the Ravens.

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With Smith as the referee, home teams’ win rate drops 15 percent from 55.9% to 40.8%. Furthermore, the home team goes from covering the spread 50.1% to 37% of the time in the games officiated by Shawn Smith. According to reports, the league could’ve chosen eight different referees but decided to pick the most controversial one.

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This is not the first time the league has been accused of favoring the Chiefs. Fans have been doing that for a long time, but ever since Taylor Swift started showing up to Kansas City’s games to support her boyfriend Travis Kelce, the accusations are piling in.

Most recently, a similar thing happened ahead of the Chiefs divisional round game against the Buffalo Bills. Ahead of the game, fans lashed out league for appointing Shawn Hochuli as the head ref. Hochuli had a reputation for calling a lot of penalties on the Bills.

However, the Chiefs-Bills divisional round game went smoothly and the officiating in that game didn’t cause a lot of ruckus. And now, the league would be just hoping that Shawn Smith’s officiating doesn’t cause any chaos after the game.

Social media reacts to Shawn Smith being named as the referee for Chiefs-Ravens AFC game

NFL fans on social media went crazy after seeing Shawn Smith being named as the referee for the AFC championship game between the Chiefs and the Ravens.

Patrick Mahomes
Patrick Mahomes has not looked invincible this season. (via AP)

Fans are convinced the league is doing everything they can do to get the Chiefs to the Super Bowl, since that would mean Taylor Swift would attend the championship game and boost the viewership. Check out the reactions attached below.

Swift has played a huge role in boosting NFL games’ ratings this year. The divisional round game between the Chiefs and the Bills last Sunday became the most-watched divisional round game ever with an average of 50 million viewers.

Furthermore, after her first appearance in the Kansas City game, Travis Kelce’s jersey sales increased by 400% within 24 hours and also helped the tight end gain 300k followers on Instagram.

It’s clear Swift appearing in NFL games is a good thing for the league. Due to this, fans are convinced the league would do everything in their power to keep that happening.

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