Let me see if I can get this straight in my head...
There are gamblers who seriously believe that an NFL game is fixed somehow by the players, coaches, referees, or some combination thereof. Why? Because there is big money riding on the game between the aforementioned parties or Vegas, and if it's the latter, Vegas somehow influences these parties to fix the game.
Um, yeah. Sure.
Do some of you not understand how many hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars ride on performance clauses in these players' contracts. Nevermind the millions of dollars they have contracted for that would be lost if they were found to participate in such a scandal. I'm talking about number of touchdowns in a season type of incentives. Coaches need to get every point they can, too, because at the end of the season you can bet the owner is going to be looking at point differential over the course of the season.
Now, if we were talking about some obscure college game where the athletes don't necessarily have as much to lose, or a game involving a fix by a lone ref or two (see Dougherty, Tim), then I could understand. But to question the motives of the coach and the players on either side of last night's game, as if they were in collusion to send the game Over or cover the spread is simply ludacris.