Proof that refs are calling the games one sided

[cymatica]

Forget the dice, how likely is it opponents get penalized far less everytime they play the hawks, while getting penalized at or above their average in the preceding and following games, 3 years in a row?

 

[Hawkpower]

If you were to take a 32 sided dice and roll it once, the chances would be 1/32.

If you were to take a 32 sided dice and role the same number (Seahawks) twice in a row, you'd get 32*32 not 32*2.

1/1024 is the probability of the same certain number (Seahawks) being pulled twice in a row out of 32 other teams.

A football game and the officiating within it (when called "fairly") are not random processes like rolling a perfect die. It's more like rolling a 32 sided die made out of a material that doesn't usually hold its shape and is inconsistently weighted.

Then explain how EVERY team that plays Seattle gets called for less penalties than average for now 3 years running?

That doesnt happen unless it is by design. Unless you believe Seattle plays so passively that their opponents are not threatened and as such all play mistake free football for three straight years.

Is that what you believe?

If its not, the ONLY other possibility is that these results are a direct result of referee bias, conscious or not

 

[Kaiser]

Why are you entering dice into a stat that is definitely not random? Are the chances of a browns QB 1/32 just because there are 32 teams? No, there are reasons.

 

[Willyeye]

I have no issue with calls on the Seahawks. They probably deserve the majority of those calls, even if they are way above average when considered over multiple seasons. But I can live with that. I can't live with the lack of calls on Seahawk opponents. For team after team to come into games with the Seahawks with an average of 8 or 9 penalties per game and leave the field with only 2 or 3 penalties game after game seems to be an impossibility. It can't just be some random coincidence. Why would seemingly every team be below their average for every game in which they face the Seahawks. I do remember in 2014 that the Seahawks only had 70 penalties called on their opponents. The next closest team was the Pats and they had 91...but the rest of the NFL ranged from that 91 to 144. How is it even remotely possible that the teams that played the Hawks could average just over 4 penalties per game over the course of an entire season? Everybody in the NFCW had at least 12 games that were identical to the Hawks schedule. The Rams were the beneficiaries of 106 penalties on their opponents. The 49ers got 122 and the Cards got 130. Again, the Hawks got only 70. I'm no mathematician, but I'm not the dumbest guy on the planet either. How is it possible that teams that played a very similar schedule could have so many more penalties called on their opponents than the Hawks? Think about that...in 2014, refs called 70 penalties on our opponents, but then called 130 penalties on Cardinal opponents. Is it even mathematically possible for that large of a disparity to rear its ugly head in such a small sample size of only 16 games? In 2015 we had 94, while the Rams had 109, the 49ers had 112, and the Cardinals once again had 130.

Am I crazy, or is there even a tiny chance that the NFL has certain referee crews go to certain games in order that they favor one team over another to improve their goal of parity and higher TV ratings? The coincidences seemed really strange to me this Sunday. I heard there was a poll which asked people why they think NFL TV viewership is down between 15% to 20% this year. The #1 answer was referee bias and too many flags. The #2 answer was the sitting and kneeling by players during the National Anthem. Can't remember any other answers, but there weren't very many of them. I also heard on the radio that a lot of the declining TV ratings were in the South. How weird is it that in 3 games involving the NFCS- the Bucs, Saints and Panthers all had far less penalties than their opponents- the Raiders, Hawks and Cards.

The Raiders actually outyarded the Bucs 626 to 270. They should have won the game by 50 points. But the refs flagged them 24 times (23 penalties) for 200 yards, I think the Bucs had 6 for 40 yards. The Hawks outnumbered the Saints 11-2, while the Cards outnumbered the Panthers 10-5. Is it possible that the referee crews at these 3 games were told to favor the NFCS teams in the hopes that over time, the TV ratings might go back up some in the South? The Cards lost to a struggling Panthers team, the Hawks lost to a Saints that has one of the worst defenses in the NFL, and the Raiders barely eeked out a 30-24 victory with less than 2 minutes left in OT...I almost thought there was going to be a 3rd tie in 8 days. And the Raiders game seemed like more blatant bias by the refs than in the Hawks game. I didn't watch any of the Cards-Panthers game so I can't comment on it.

I definitely felt that there was at least some level of bias by the refs in the game with the Saints. I remember that besides the 2 false start calls, the refs called an offensive holding on the Saints, but they threw the flag after Brees was sacked for a 5-yard loss. I thought it was "appropriate" given that they knew the Hawks would decline it. Kind of like a little consolation prize...like they were trying to let the Hawks know that they still were willing to throw flags on the Saints. What a joke!

 

[AgentDib]

There's an unpopular but simple explanation for why our opponents get flagged less often then they normally do. Contrary to public opinion, officials prefer not to throw flags and are aware the NFL is an entertainment product. The balance they are trying to strike is to ensure fairness while still keeping the pace of the game going. They didn't throw a flag on either team on the final play against ATL because they are fully aware that having a penalty decide a game worsens the entertainment value.

The way I see it is that officials are quick to throw flags against us due to our negative reputation. That is half our own fault with all of the procedural penalties and holding along the offensive line, and half the result of opposing coaches playing up that reputation to try to get an advantage against a difficult opponent. Each flag thrown is a small disincentive to future flags and this naturally results in our opponents unintentionally being less penalized than normal.

The solution is partly to get out of our own way with the avoidable penalties and partly for Pete to continue talking to the league office about the discrepancy so they can intentionally adjust for the unintentional bias.

 

[seabowl]

There's an unpopular but simple explanation for why our opponents get flagged less often then they normally do. Contrary to public opinion, officials prefer not to throw flags and are aware the NFL is an entertainment product. The balance they are trying to strike is to ensure fairness while still keeping the pace of the game going. They didn't throw a flag on either team on the final play against ATL because they are fully aware that having a penalty decide a game worsens the entertainment value.

The way I see it is that officials are quick to throw flags against us due to our negative reputation. That is half our own fault with all of the procedural penalties and holding along the offensive line, and half the result of opposing coaches playing up that reputation to try to get an advantage against a difficult opponent. Each flag thrown is a small disincentive to future flags and this naturally results in our opponents unintentionally being less penalized than normal.

The solution is partly to get out of our own way with the avoidable penalties and partly for Pete to continue talking to the league office about the discrepancy so they can intentionally adjust for the unintentional bias.

This has to be Goodell writing this in disguise. Of course it's Seattles fault that the refs throw less flags on their opponents. :34853_doh:

 

[bmorepunk]

If you were to take a 32 sided dice and roll it once, the chances would be 1/32.

If you were to take a 32 sided dice and role the same number (Seahawks) twice in a row, you'd get 32*32 not 32*2.

1/1024 is the probability of the same certain number (Seahawks) being pulled twice in a row out of 32 other teams.

A football game and the officiating within it (when called "fairly") are not random processes like rolling a perfect die. It's more like rolling a 32 sided die made out of a material that doesn't usually hold its shape and is inconsistently weighted.

Then explain how EVERY team that plays Seattle gets called for less penalties than average for now 3 years running?

That doesnt happen unless it is by design. Unless you believe Seattle plays so passively that their opponents are not threatened and as such all play mistake free football for three straight years.

Is that what you believe?

If its not, the ONLY other possibility is that these results are a direct result of referee bias, conscious or not

That's a completely different discussion than the one I've been engaged in. If people want to have a subjective conversation regarding back-to-back year rankings and say it shows that the officials are biased specifically against the Seahawks then that's fine. It's the kind of thing that happens on a message board.

Simplifying the system that creates those rankings in the absence of (subjectively) unfair officiating and then stating that the probability density function is exactly a discrete rectangular distribution for a single event is absolutely wrong. It's even worse when this is transformed into two consecutive single events and "odds" are calculated.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

I just find it humorous that when the Hawks win a game on what people claim are "iffy calls".... people in the media etc. lose their minds.
When the Hawks get jobbed, nobody talks about it. It's basically just "get over it Seattle"

 

[Popeyejones]

N/M

 

[WindCityHawk]

I hope someone in the organization puts together a packet of this information and presents a case to the league. Nefarious or coincidental, it has to stop.

Seattle has a reputation for skirting the line, no doubt our boys play hard, but the refs need to remember there are two teams out there. And other teams MUST know by now that they can get away with more against us.

Ridiculous.

 

[Attyla the Hawk]

I definitely felt that there was at least some level of bias by the refs in the game with the Saints. I remember that besides the 2 false start calls, the refs called an offensive holding on the Saints, but they threw the flag after Brees was sacked for a 5-yard loss.

Also to note...The teams that are NOT being penalized when playing us, are getting penalized up the whazzoo in games before AND after playing us.

Hell, the Saints were the MOST penalized this year, BEFORE they played the Seahawks...Go figure that one.

Ok scutterhawk/Willyeye, this one's for you.

So I did bother to check the 3 games prior to Seattle:

KC ( 2 subjective, 9 procedure):

False Start (Cooks)
False Start (Evans)
False Start (Kuhn)
Unnecessary Roughness (Bell)
Offsides (Fairley)
Holding (Lelito)
Delay of Game (Brees)
OPI (Fleener)
False Start (Cadet)
Unnecessary Roughness (Fairley)
Delay of Game (Brees)



Carolina ( 3 subjective, 6 procedure)

Illegal Motion (Cooks)
Offsides (Jenkins)
False Start (Thomas)
False Start (Peat)
12 on field (NO)
DPI (Vaccaro)
False Start (Hills)
DPI (Moore)
DPI (Dixon)


San Diego (2 subjective, 3 procedure)

False Start (Evans)
Holding (Evans)
Offsides (Fairley)
Out of bounds on punt (Harris)
DPI (Bell)


Seattle (1 Subjective, 2 procedure)

False Start (Kelemete)
False Start (Peat)
Holding (Streif) Declined


In all honesty, the numbers strongly suggest a team that is just sloppy. With the vast majority (72% over prior three games) of their penalties being just procedure penalties. They cut that drastically against us. That they had one subjective call is fewer than any of their previous games. How much different is very debateable. But what isn't debateable is that even if they achieved their average (2), would we honestly be satisfied with a 12-4 disparity over a 12-3?

The greatest compelling difference here is that they did in fact play a cleaner game against us. By a very wide margin. In this particular case -- there isn't evidence that would satisfy any tin foil hat scenario. New Orleans played crisper on offense and didn't make bonehead personal fouls. Both of which marred their previous 3 games but has been lessening each week.

One could easily make the case that the Saints are actually trending to be a cleaner team and that Payton (offensive coach who emphasizes penalty free play) has made this a priority -- not merely an aside on a monday press conference.

 

[cymatica]

The greatest compelling difference here is that they did in fact play a cleaner game against us.

So the two pick plays were legal then?

This doesn't take into consideration the tackle out of bounds not stopping the clock, or shead getting a hold within 5 yards on a play that didnt tesemble a hold at all. These refs are supposed to be trained professionals, but they are clearly looking to throw flags in some situations and decide to not in others.

 

[AgentDib]

Of course it's Seattles fault that the refs throw less flags on their opponents. :34853_doh:

Partly. It isn't what you want to hear but it's a much more likely explanation then assuming either conspiracy or that calls are purely random and we've just been exceedingly unlucky.

Opposing coaches have simply been winning the PR battle so far this season in the minds of the officials. You can come up with your own reasons why but it obviously doesn't help that we've given them fodder to do so.

 

[scutterhawk]

There's an unpopular but simple explanation for why our opponents get flagged less often then they normally do. Contrary to public opinion, officials prefer not to throw flags and are aware the NFL is an entertainment product. The balance they are trying to strike is to ensure fairness while still keeping the pace of the game going. They didn't throw a flag on either team on the final play against ATL because they are fully aware that having a penalty decide a game worsens the entertainment value.

The way I see it is that officials are quick to throw flags against us due to our negative reputation. That is half our own fault with all of the procedural penalties and holding along the offensive line, and half the result of opposing coaches playing up that reputation to try to get an advantage against a difficult opponent. Each flag thrown is a small disincentive to future flags and this naturally results in our opponents unintentionally being less penalized than normal.

The solution is partly to get out of our own way with the avoidable penalties and partly for Pete to continue talking to the league office about the discrepancy so they can intentionally adjust for the unintentional bias.

This has to be Goodell writing this in disguise. Of course it's Seattles fault that the refs throw less flags on their opponents. :34853_doh:

LOLOLOL, seabowl?, I couldn't have answered any better.

 

[Hawkpower]

Of course it's Seattles fault that the refs throw less flags on their opponents. :34853_doh:

Partly. It isn't what you want to hear but it's a much more likely explanation then assuming either conspiracy or that calls are purely random and we've just been exceedingly unlucky.

Opposing coaches have simply been winning the PR battle so far this season in the minds of the officials. You can come up with your own reasons why but it obviously doesn't help that we've given them fodder to do so.

You are ok with refs calling games differently because opposing coaches are winning a PR battle?

Seems to me that may as well be right up there with steering games to a desired outcome. What's the difference?

 

[Krieg's list]

A few points:

1) The probability of any team having the least penalized opponents in consecutive seasons is actually 1/32. It's really not that improbable. (Note: this also incorrectly assumes penalty distributions are random from team to team and season to season, but others have mentioned this already.)

2014: Any team (happened to be Seattle) finishes with least penalized opponents. 1/1 probability.
2015: There is a 1/32 chance of the same team (Seattle) finishing with the least penalized opponents.

You are correct in calculating the likelihood, prior to the 2014 season, of the Seahawks finishing first in this category two consecutive seasons. That probability was 1/1024. But the probability of interest is ANY team leading the league in fewest opponent penalties for consecutive years. Doesn't matter if it had been the Niners (1/1024), the Patriots (1/1024), etc. When you add up all the teams, you have a 32/1024 (=1/32) probability that any team finishes two consecutive seasons having the least penalized opponents. This is not as outrageous a number as we had hoped.


2) Attyla is smart to categorize the penalties into pre-snap and post-snap. This may show that Seattle wasn't even the team with the fewest opponent post-snap penalties in 2014 or 2015, or it may show that the discrepancy between the Seahawks and the rest of the league is even greater than we think-- I don't know. But including pre-snap penalties in an argument about referee bias is disingenuous. On another note, I did find Attyla's decision to eliminate personal fouls as non-subjective amusing, considering they are arguably the most subjective calls in football.


3) One major issue that is hard to account for statistically is high-leverage penalties. 3rd and long defensive holding away from the play. 3rd down roughing the passer. Offensive holding away from the play that brings back a long gain. The true impact of these kind of penalties is not sufficiently captured in the stats. So even if a team and its opponents are penalized at a similar rate, the timing and situation of the penalties can still provide one team with a significant advantage over the other. I don't really see any simple way to quantify this, unfortunately, with the info that is available online.


It certainly feels like over the last few seasons Seattle has been, on the whole, getting the short end of the penalty stick. And the raw numbers support that. But let's not cook the books to enhance the argument. If you take out pre-snap penalties and Seattle still leads in fewest opponent penalties in 2014, 2015, and 2016, THEN you can start shouting about 1000 to 1 odds. It still wouldn't account for penalties being non-random, but it should at least raise some eyebrows at that point.

 

[seabowl]

A few points:

1) The probability of any team having the least penalized opponents in consecutive seasons is actually 1/32. It's really not that improbable. (Note: this also incorrectly assumes penalty distributions are random from team to team and season to season, but others have mentioned this already.)

2014: Any team (happened to be Seattle) finishes with least penalized opponents. 1/1 probability.
2015: There is a 1/32 chance of the same team (Seattle) finishing with the least penalized opponents.

You are correct in calculating the likelihood, prior to the 2014 season, of the Seahawks finishing first in this category two consecutive seasons. That probability was 1/1024. But the probability of interest is ANY team leading the league in fewest opponent penalties for consecutive years. Doesn't matter if it had been the Niners (1/1024), the Patriots (1/1024), etc. When you add up all the teams, you have a 32/1024 (=1/32) probability that any team finishes two consecutive seasons having the least penalized opponents. This is not as outrageous a number as we had hoped.


2) Attyla is smart to categorize the penalties into pre-snap and post-snap. This may show that Seattle wasn't even the team with the fewest opponent post-snap penalties in 2014 or 2015, or it may show that the discrepancy between the Seahawks and the rest of the league is even greater than we think-- I don't know. But including pre-snap penalties in an argument about referee bias is disingenuous. On another note, I did find Attyla's decision to eliminate personal fouls as non-subjective amusing, considering they are arguably the most subjective calls in football.


3) One major issue that is hard to account for statistically is high-leverage penalties. 3rd and long defensive holding away from the play. 3rd down roughing the passer. Offensive holding away from the play that brings back a long gain. The true impact of these kind of penalties is not sufficiently captured in the stats. So even if a team and its opponents are penalized at a similar rate, the timing and situation of the penalties can still provide one team with a significant advantage over the other. I don't really see any simple way to quantify this, unfortunately, with the info that is available online.


It certainly feels like over the last few seasons Seattle has been, on the whole, getting the short end of the penalty stick. And the raw numbers support that. But let's not cook the books to enhance the argument. If you take out pre-snap penalties and Seattle still leads in fewest opponent penalties in 2014, 2015, and 2016, THEN you can start shouting about 1000 to 1 odds. It still wouldn't account for penalties being non-random, but it should at least raise some eyebrows at that point.

Another Goodell post. You cannot give a 1-1 chance of coming in last in 2014. It's still a 1-32 chance. After further review the call is reversed to 1-1024 chance of coming in last place two years in a row.

BTW that's the first challenge that we have won in a while.

 

[Bullmeister]

Why are you entering dice into a stat that is definitely not random? Are the chances of a browns QB 1/32 just because there are 32 teams? No, there are reasons.

The reason why people are using the 32-sided dice example here is because it represents an unbiased "outcome" generator. The concept is a valid one to consider if we assume there is no bias against any team. Its the penalties that you would expect if for example, on every play, refs rolled say a six sided die: 1-4 = no penalty, 5 = penalty against Team A, 6 = penalty vs team B.

In statistics it might represent the "null hypothesis". ie. it is what you expect if there is no bias at all. In this case, if there was no bias in how the refs penalise teams throughout the year, you would expect your observations over the years to match what you would expect if the penalties were in fact determined by a random die roll. Of course we know all teams/players/coaches don't all play the same way so differences are EXPECTED between the penalties against each team.

The actual statistic of interest here however is not however as simple/straight forward one to "see"/understand amongst the typical NFL stats.

Breaking it down, you would have to do it like this: At the end of each year, for each team that played Seattle, take the total penalties they incurred for the full year and divide it by the number of games they play to get a penalties/game average. Now subtract this yearly penalties/game average from the actual gameday penalties they incurred in each game when they played Seattle. If teams played Seahawks multiple times, take the average of the values calculated across those games.

You will now have a number for each team that played Seattle in a season that represents how penalised they were when playing Seattle as compared to their penalties per game average across the whole season. A POSITIVE number would mean they had been penalised MORE than their yearly per game penalty average when playing Seattle; if it is NEGATIVE, then they had been penalised LESS when playing Seattle compared to their yearly per game penalty average,

If you now take these numbers and average them all up and assume there is no bias in the way teams are penalised, the EXPECTED number for this would be 0. If teams are getting penalised LESS than they normally do when playing Seattle (which is what is being said), then the EXPECTED number would be NEGATIVE.

Note: the concept of EXPECTED number in statistics is a useful one to consider. It's what you expect based on what you assume, typically if you repeated "the experiment" an infinite amount of times.

You would then do this for every other team and compare to Seattle.

If we find over the last few years that this value is NEGATIVE for Seattle, then it is clear that teams ARE getting penalised less against Seattle compared to their penalties/game across the whole season.

Further if we now rank this Seattle value against the values calculated for each other team in the NFL across a few years and find Seattle is NOT appearing to vary randomly (eg. is typically low or bottom ranking), then it further highlights a potential bias in outcome.

 

[lukerguy]

The reason the dice analogy isn't as far off as some of you suggest is because I believe you don't quite understand the penalty situation.

The opposing teams have been flagged on average less while playing the Seahawks than playing every other team for two and a half years straight. This has nothing to do with the Seahawks taking many penalties.

The Saints were often penalized this year (top 4 in the league), and somehow managed only 1 penalty all game.

The theory suggests that if the refs were completely, completely impartial the chances of the Seahawks being the same team two years straight to have their opponents flagged less than they normally do on average is about 1/1000.

The team who's opponent gets flagged less on average than they normally do vs the other teams on the schedule should be a completely random occurrence.

 

[Seahawk Sailor]

The odds aren't 32-1 for anything in the NFL, from the Seahawks being the most penalized team to the Browns having a one in 32 chance to win the Super Bowl. Teams play to their strengths and try to mitigate weaknesses. One of the Seahawks' strengths is playing as close to the edge as possible. The weakness that comes with that is getting more penalties called for it.

That said, there are a number of games, this last game included, that have had an inappropriate number of iffy calls against the Seahawks. Now calculate the odds of iffy calls going one way for a particular team, and you might have a stat worth looking at.