In this article, we are going to look into the influence referees and penalties have on a typical NFL game and season.  First, all the penalty data comes from nflpenalties.com.  If you would like to reveiw any of the data here, or data going back 10 years, you can do so on their site.

Let's break this article down into 2 parts:

• What influence do penalties have on the game?
• What penalties are being called this season in comparison to pervious seasons?

If you would like to read more about the penalty research issues & fixes, the full article is posted here:

NFL 2023 - Referees & Penalties Midseason Report

NFL 2023 Penalties by team

What influence do penalties have on an NFL Game?

First we should try to use the data to determine the amount penalties influence the outcome of NFL games.  To do that we are going to look at two charts:

• Win % by Penalty Calls Differential
• Win % by Penalty Yardage Differential

Let's start with Win % based on the difference of total penalties called against each team.  In the chart below you will see the penalty differnces , amount of  times a difference occured, team records, & Win %.

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Win % by Penalty Amount Difference

Look at the range from 8 Fewer to 8 More in the win % column.  You will see almost a direct relationship between penalty difference and Win %.  The less penalties called against a team, the higher its chances of winning.  Outside the 8 Fewer to 8  More range we get into smaller sample sizes, so we are going to see more chaos in the records & Win % numbers

How about the relationship between Penalty Yardage and Win %, will we see the same thing there?

We have many small ranges in this chart so we are going to see a bit of chaos, but again if you look from 60-64 Fewer to 60-64 More range, you will again see a strong correlation between Win % and penalty yardage differential.

Win % by Penalty Yardage Difference

Therefore, the amount penalties called against a team, and/or the more penalty yardage called against a team relative its opponent, can swing Win % about 10% in either direction.   Thus this +/- 10% influence is about the influence referees can have on any single game, assuming they dont go completely flag crazy against one team.

What penalties are being called this season in comparison to previous seasons?

The following chart will show NFL Penalties over the past 5 years broken down by quarter, offense, defense, ST, amount of penalties and penalty yardage.  As you can see, if we project out the 2023 penalties, we are headed for the most penalties called in a season since 2019, and the most penalties called on the defense since 2020.  So it is fair to say, based on the projections, that referees are having more of an influence in 2023 than they have had since at least 2020.

NFL Penalties 2019 - 2023

If they are calling more penalties, what kind of penalties are the calling more of & when are they calling them?

This is the sticky wicket.  Different penalties have different punishments.  All are punished by yardage, but some grant automatic first downs.  However,  automatic 1st down penalties are the drive changers.  When they are taking place late in a game, it is going to appear as though, and in fact it actually may be, a game that is unduly influenced by penalties.

Look a the amount of penalties called in the 4th quarter thus far in 2023(445).  This projects out to about 900 4th quarter penalties in 2023, which again would be the most in the 4th quarter since 2019.

The real damning information comes in form of the following charts. The first is Automatic First Down Passing Penalties FOR each team.  In this chart the team listed is the beneficiary of an automatic 1st down penalty via the 4 main types of defensive passing penalties: Defensive Holding, Defensive Pass Interference, Illegal Contact, & Roughing the Passer.

As we can see, Tennessee has benefitted the most and Chicago has benefitted the least.  And there is a large difference between teams that benefitted most vs teams that have benefitted least.

Automatic 1st Down Penalties FOR

Here is the same chart but now we are looking at automatic 1st penalties AGAINST each team

Automatic 1st Down Penalties AGAINST

Below is a chart showing NET automatic 1st down penalties by team(FOR - AGAINST).  It is sorted from team most punished to most helped.  Since all these penalties come with auto 1st down, the Total column shows the amount of free 1st downs a team has given away(negative#) or gained(positive #).

NFL 2023 NET automatic first down penalties

Now I am simply going to repost one chart with 2022 and extrapolated 2023 data. This should allow us to see changes in amount/type of calls between 2022 & 2023.

Automatic First Down Penalty Calls 2022 vs 2023

So in 2022, there were 610 of these types of penalties called against the defense for a total of 6529 yards.

In 2023, there are projected to be 695 types of these penalties called for a total of 7348 yards.

The changes:

• Total calls - up from 2.24 calls to 2.56 calls, an increase of 13.95%
• Defensive Holding calls - Down 10.87%
• Defensive Pass Interfence calls - Up 27.98%
• Illegal Contact calls - Up 26.30%
• Roughing the Passer calls - Up 27.82%

So while one of the 4 calls is showing a decrease of just under 11%, it is the least damaging penalty(along with Illegal Contact) among the four.  Meanwhile, the most damaging types of calls, Pass Interference & Roughing the Passer are both up nearly 28%(as is illegal contact).  Essentially all the referees have done is changed a few of the defensive holding calls into illegal contact calls.  While at the same time throwing a fairly massive increase of supremely damaging defensive penalties.

And if we simply combine this information, with the information about 4th quarter penalties being up, it means the referees are throwing more of the most damaging types of defensive passing penalties in 2023 than they have since at least 2020.  By doing this they are going to put there influence on games at the very edges of that +/- 10%, as opposed to having less influence over outcomes this year.

Enjoy your football Sunday & best of luck to your team. They may need it.

Jonathan Gannon, Cardinals (Former Eagles DC)

Shane Steichen, Colts (Former Eagles OC)

DeMeco Ryans, Texans (Former 49ers DC)

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They've all been good, imo.

The Cards aren't winning, but they aren't meant to be, and they look as good as they can. Great for a hire that a lot of us thought was a bad move.

The Colts have been pretty fun this year, obviously not having Richardson is bad but they're competitive.

The Texans are making the absolute most of their talent, once they get their roster more loaded up they're looking really good. Stroud has been great.

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Thoughts?

Tony Soprano’s iconic house is actually real and in West Caldwell, the town right next to Cedar Grove NJ… where Tommy lives with his mother.

This is crazy to me because I also grew up in that area and right by the stadium. The guy is almost exactly a year younger than my little sister.

Most 25 year olds around here still live with their parents. Housing is expensive. Gotta start somewhere. At this point this is normal and expected, and everyone is living at home while they work on breaking into a career somewhere. But this dude is the starting quarterback for the New York Football Giants and he’s “just another guy” living at home like the rest? How is this possible?

He also went to high school right next to my job. Like I can hear their music during football practice at 4. I’m having trouble getting over the fact that he’s so smalltime for such a national spotlight and big role. And he refuses to change which is actually super admirable. A lot of people would let it go to their heads.

Man I hope the kid succeeds because if he’s trash, it will always feel like the equivalent of me and my buddies driving up to the stadium AND THEY JUST LET ONE OF US BE THE QB. I think that thought would break me.

Good luck Tommy DeVito, the local boy! Hope you have a long and successful career.

Does anyone know why the Bills-Bengals game last week on 11/5/23 was played in Cincinnati? I ask since last years MNF Regular Season game was in Cincinnati, and even though the game didn’t finish, they said they would not make this game up. So, why wasn’t this one played in Buffalo as they usually rotate when non-divisional teams play in back to back years. The playoff game should not have caused this at all. I’ve looked online, and can only find stuff about last years playoff game, and them deciding not to make up the regular season game last year in Week 17, so does anyone know the answer for why this happened? 🤷🏻‍♂️

What are your thoughts on the idea of struggling teams renting players out to contenders for a season, then coming back to their original team. Is this a strategy that could be implemented ever?

My first thoughts are it’s not very different from older players getting traded somewhere else to ring chase, but I’m not sure if the players would be too keen on switching teams so often either.

Excuse my ignorance, but what's up with this? I don't recall seeing it before last weekend. Half a second before the snap, an offensive lineman rapidly points forward.

Two questions:

1. Is there an exception under the false start rules that makes this OK?

2. Why are they doing it? To try to make the defense jump?

Why do you seem to blame your teams being not good on anything but the qbs not being good? Sure, it's nuanced. The front office might suck (this is observably true for all 3 of you). Your coach may suck (much more Bears). Yes, your offensive lines are not good but really, have you seen anything that suggests these 3 qbs are anything but bad? I watch a lot of football. DJ and JF have been in the league long enough we know they are not good. They aren't gonna transform, they simply are not good. Now Bryce is a rookie, but he does not appear to be a starting NFL qb. Why every time someone criticizes your not good qbs is the response to make excuses for them? I'm curious

I'm talking the wide end of your personal analysis range, which could be narrow (the extreme being PHI v KC) or very wide (something like PIT v ATL).

For me, I would have it at 5 teams in each Conference, in this order -- that's it:

PHI SF DAL DET/NO

KC CIN/BAL JAX BUF

So basically you could say based on current odds, that the longest shot SB Matchup I could possibly see occurring would be NO v BUF, although I definitely prefer JAX to BUF.

TLDR

Some teams are going to have an easier schedule in the second half of the season and some teams are going to have a harder schedule in the second half of the season. I'm using DVOA to quantify just how much easier/harder things are going to get for each team. The Raiders will have the biggest swing in terms of more difficulty, and the Colts will have the biggest swing in terms of getting easier.

Longer Version

The 4-5 Raiders started off this season facing quite a few crap teams like the Giants, the Bears and the Patriots. They didn't have the easiest schedule per opponent DVOA, but they did have the 7th easiest with an average opponent of -5.5% DVOA. But after the Jets this week they face the Dolphins, the Chiefs, and a few weeks later, the Chiefs again. Their average opponent for the 2nd half of the season has a DVOA of 7.8%, giving them the third most difficult schedule per DVOA in the 2nd half.

Rather than a focus directly on their 2H schedule difficulty, I was more interested in the gap between the first half and second half of the season. Because we know their record, and we can get their avg opp DVOA thus far, I thought it's more useful to see how much better or worse things are going to get as compared to what they've already been up against. For the Raiders that means, that their opponents in the second have will average 13.4% points more in DVOA than their first half opponents. In terms of the shift between 1H and 2H, they have the largest increase in opponent DVOA.

Conversely, things should get a lot easier for the 4-5 Colts. They've faced a gauntlet of tough teams like the Ravens, the Jaguars (twice), and the Browns, giving them the 5th toughest schedule (8.0% DVOA) in the first half of the season. But with the Patriots, Falcons and Raiders on their schedule, they have the theoretical 3rd easiest schedule remaining (-5.2%). Comparing the first half to the second half shows a difference of -13.2% DVOA per opp, giving the Colts the biggest drop in opponent quality from the first half to the second half.

To be clear, this doesn't mean the Raiders have the toughest schedule in the 2nd half, that is the Bengals at 15.3% opp DVOA. And it doesn't mean the Colts have the easiest schedule in the second half, that's the Saints (avg opp -13.6% DVOA). It means the Raiders and Colts have the biggest shifts in terms of opponent quality when comparing 1H to 2H.

Where did I pull all the data?

FTN Fantasy has some really good DVOA data (offense, defense, ST, opponents, etc). More on DVOA here, from Aaron Schatz the creator of the metric.

How to interpret the charts:

On the scatterplot, the horizontal X-axis represents each team's average opponent DVOA in the first half of the season. Further left and below zero, means their opponents were easier, further right and above zero, means their opponents were harder. (WAS easiest, PIT hardest). The vertical Y-axis represents the DVOA of each team's average opponent in the 2nd half of the season. Higher on the chart and above xero, means more harder teams, lower on the chart and below zero means easier teams...in the seconf half. As mentioned earlier, CIN has the toughest, and NO has the easiest.

• Teams in the top-left had an easy first half, but things are about to get difficult.
• Teams in the bottom-right had a tough first half, and now it will ease up.
• Those unlucky teams in the top-right, have a difficult first half AND a difficult 2nd half.
• And the lucky teams in the bottom-left have it easy all season.

The bar chart to the right, subtracts the teams' 2nd half of the season opp DVOA from the first half of the season opp DVOA. Positive means their schedule is going to be more difficult relative to the first half, and negative means it will be easier relative to the first half.

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https://preview.redd.it/gvt00b0y2rzb1.png?width=1272&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5c29be763af607b69565de295b8b96939b38472

Apologies for the paywall, but I thought this was worth sharing anyway. Really excellent profile of McDaniel.

Title. In a season with a lack of these great games, which have been the best contests so far? One I’d like to nominate is the Texans/Bucs from last week - while the defenses didn’t show up, the offenses were locked in a close shootout. Are there any others that stick out so far?

The highlight video for last week's Texans vs Bucs game (https://youtu.be/bMykBLbbD9s?si=iy0dA9yDLnw_ludq) skips the final TD pass in the last seconds of the game.

From the YT comments it seems this isn't a new thing in terms of the highlight videos having bad editing and missing big plays. Meanwhile random plays will make it.

How is the biggest and richest sport organization in America bad at highlights and is this why they copyright everyone else cuz they are mad their editors can't do it?