It’s pretty common for National Football League fans to wonder whether the fix is in against their favorite team, especially when a questionable penalty call factors into a close game’s outcome.
Ahead of the Super Bowl LVII Feb. 12 matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles in Glendale, Arizona, some social media users shared a fake box score they described as a leaked “script” that showed the Eagles winning 37-34.
“The Super Bowl script was leaked,” read one tweet shared on Feb. 5, sharing a screenshot of the boxscore.
Other users shared similar tweets with the same image.
It’s unclear where the image originated and who shared it on Twitter first, but, as Snopes fact-checkers first reported, the box score looks similar to one on the website Pro Football Reference, with the San Francisco 49ers beating the Las Vegas Raiders by that same score last month.
We were able to take code from that page and swap in details to create a fake box score using the online tool WebMaker.
PolitiFact was able to recreate the fake box score shared on Twitter by taking code from another boxscore from the Pro Football Reference website and tweaking details, using the online tool WebMaker. (PolitiFact)
It’s possible the inspiration for the tweets came from a recent podcast, where a former NFL player jokingly said the NFL is rigged.
On the Jan. 30 episode of the Barstool Sports podcast “Macrodosing,” co-host Arian Foster, a former running back with the NFL’s Houston Texans, played along with colleague PFT Commenter, who said before the taping that Foster had told him “how the NFL is rigged.” Every year, PFT Commenter said, players would get a script for how the season would play out.
Foster then compared the NFL to professional wrestling and said, “We know what’s going to happen, but you still got to put on a show.”
The podcast, according to a listing on Spotify, describes the show as “Arian Foster and PFT Commenter explore conspiracies, conundrums, and the dark corners of the deep web.”
Reaction and comedy were quick to follow on social media. Foster and his co-host seemed to have fun with the attention his comments were getting. Foster even hawked a T-shirt on the Barstool Sports site with the words, “Just following my script.”
NFL players and fans were in on the joke on Twitter, at the Pro Bowl in Las Vegas, and in Arizona ahead of the big game.
Eagles center Jason Kelce was asked about it this week and said it “was a great interview.”
“Tearing my ACL in 2012 was probably the worst thing that Roger ever scripted,” he said with a straight face, referring to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
Jason Kelce hated the NFL script in 2012 that told him to tear his ACL
pic.twitter.com/FoonOSWoUE— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) February 7, 2023
Although NFL officiating has often come under heavy criticism in recent years — most recently in the Chiefs’ 23-20 AFC Championship game win over the Cincinnati Bengals in Kansas City on Jan. 29 — Chiefs fans can rest easy.
There’s no evidence the outcome of the Super Bowl has been scripted by the league. We rate the claim Pants on Fire!
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here and more of their fact checks here.
