One Fans view - Week 1

[trapezeus]

http://www.billszone.com/?p=1200

For your enjoyment/ridicule.

[trapezeus]

was curious on people's take of the penalties number crunching over the years. Surprising? or is it just telling of how a bad team takes more penalties.

I cut and paste the piece out just for discussion purposes.

Pats Cheat – stats – One of the first things I say after every Pats loss is “they get all the calls.” And my Pats friends (an unusual term for sure) roll their eyes in their heads and think back to the year 2000 when they weren’t even football fans. That being as it may, I did a little research. If I did a lot more research and had a lot more time, I would suspect my findings would be true against any team the Pats play. Perhaps if anyone responds with an email requesting more, I’ll dig through some more numbers.

My findings: the Bills have played the Pats 19 times since 2004. They’ve won once. Know what else they lost? The penalty battle. They’ve had more penalties called on them 14 times out of 19 games. 74%. Doesn’t that seem odd for two teams who play each other so regularly? I would think it would be closer to 60/40, even taking into account that good teams take less penalties and bad teams take more. But here we are at 74%. In total, the Bills got flagged 137 times for 1,153 yards over those 19 games. The Pats were flagged 91 times for 844 yards. So the Bills gave up 46 more penalties for 309 more yards.

I took a guess (and I’d listen to arguments for or against, as well as any comments like “shenoy, you’re a genius, i like all of this”) that good teams probably get penalized 3-4 times a game for maybe 30-40 yards and bad teams get penalized 5-8 times a game for 50-60 yards. That’s my guess. The Bills got flagged for 10 penalties or more 5 times in 19 games. The Patriots just once. Oh, and in that game, the Bills got flagged 11 times. The Pats have been flagged 4 times or less 10 times in 19 games. These are kind of stunningly shocking numbers.

The yardage the Bills get tagged for is outrageous as well. I would think an average game would have maybe 35-45 yards in penalties for a team. The Bills had 50+ yards in penalties 12X out of 19 games (3x it was over 100 yards and none for the patriots). The Pats had 50+ yards in penalties 8x. In 6 outings they had less than 25 yards in penalties. The Bills did that exactly 1 time in 19 chances. The time they did it, they had 3 penalties for 17 yards; the pats had 1 for 10.
True, you could argue that the Bills suck, and the Pats are good. But routinely? To such an extent? With such consistency? I only have the numbers. I don’t have film to watch when a hands to the face on a 3rd and 1 conversion calls back a play when the Bills are starting to apply the coup de grace. The context of that would be devastating I would assume. There was one game where the Bills only had 2 penalties. Hooray! But they also had 48 yards in penalties that game. So they literally had two gigantic mistakes.

Would you be bullish of a season where you gave up 2.4x more penalties for 16 yards per game? Would you expect a team to win many games with that differential? Furthermore, in all of these games there have been instances where the call was absolutely questionable. The numbers above show a pretty lopsided case taking that idea of context of penalties into account.

But let’s not discuss it anymore. Are there any more videos of the Patriots cheating that we can help Goodell burn?

[psubills62]

Trap - that is great research.

There's one problem: you need to compare those numbers to what the Pats and Bills normally get in terms of penalties. If the Bills average 10/100 penalties and yards every game and the Pats average 4/25 every game (i.e. when they aren't playing each other), then this is normal. Obviously, though, that's a lot of work unless someone has compiled the yearly penalty statistics somewhere.

Another thing - which would take a significant amount of work - would be to look at "judgment call" penalties, like PI and holding. I'd bet the Bills get a lot more of those called on them as well.

This loss still pisses me off. And moral victories don't actually matter...unless the coaches actually do something with it. If the coaches can progress, learn from mistakes, etc., then that's great. But if this sort of thing keeps happening for the next 3 years, then Marrone will go down as another 3 and out idiot who just was not cut out to be an NFL HC.

[better days]

The only time the Pats* don't get the benefit of the doubt & the majority of the calls go their way is when they play a team like the NJ Giants.

I don't have the numbers to prove it, but I believe that to be true based on games I have seen.

[trapezeus]

yeah, it was a lot of clicking to get those games data. i did want to look at the Bills penalties in games before and after the pats game. but then i'd probably need like a full hour finding the schedule from the past, finding those games, pulling out the info by hand and then spreading the numbers into a excel notebook to look at the whole thing and see if there was anything to be said.

i don't think the bills were faultless in this game. they made several penalties that were legit penalties. However, every game since 2004 i feel like we look at some phantom penalty. Last year at home it was a roughing the passer that let the pats keep driving after a goalline fumble on our part.

I was just curious on what people think is a normal number of times to get flagged in a game and the yardage associated for a good team vs a bad team. I think more than 8 penalties a game is absurd and it has happened more than 10x in 19 games. the bills are bad, but that bad? And patriots are good, but to be so good to only be flagged 4 times or less 6 times. and less than 25 yards 8x? that's insane.

The one time the bills only had two penalities they had 48 yards in penalties, so they were big subjective calls that totally keep drives alive. if there was a way to aggregate the data quickly, it'd be awesome to really dig into the penalty discussions and see how much it sways in the patriots favor.