The Buffalo Bills traveled to New Jersey to take on the New York Jets and won pretty handily. The online chatter surrounding the game includes some assertions that the refs were a bit biased in the way they tossed flags. This chatter as far as I’ve seen are Jets fans who have plenty of reasons to be disappointed in the game.
While I could blow off their claims as nothing more than pot-stirring after a loss, it’s more fun to dig in and see if there’s any merit to it. We’ll have most of the usual penalty recap stuff, with a side of “were the Jets screwed over by the refs” at the end of it.
Standard and Advanced Metrics
Penalty Counts
It’s a short week so I’ll cut to the chase on a lot of the basics. When it comes to total count or true count (right side set of columns) both teams had the same outcome of seven flags thrown. The Jets had two declined to Buffalo’s one, which is the big difference on the left side. All told, both teams were a bit under average though not so much so to make a big deal out of it.
Penalty Yards
I teased “lopsided” and here’s the start of information that suggests precisely that. Despite similar flag volume, there’s a major disparity when it comes to yards. Even just in regards to assessed yards the Bills had double that of the Jets. Adding in yards negated by penalty, the gulf between the two teams increased. That means the average severity of each flag (in yards) was drastically higher for Buffalo.
Penalty Harm
New York Jets
I won’t dive too deeply into the analysis here, but let’s run through a couple of these flags to review the formula and some key concepts to Penalty Harm, my proprietary rating scale for flags. The false start and defensive holding on cornerback Michael Carter II don’t need any explanation as they were both yards only. The same goes for one of cornerback Sauce Gardner’s holding flags (and the other was declined).
The offensive offside on wide receiver Arian Smith was declined so no need for the formula, but it’s a very rare penalty. Bills fans should be familiar though due to the Kadarius Toney flag that was a bit controversial. What’s even weirder is that Joshua Palmer was also called for one.
The defensive holding on safety Tony Adams was five yards and two downs for 0.5 + 2.0 or 2.5 Harm. The biggest deal of the day for the Jets though was the roughing the passer on defensive tackle Micheal Clemons. That negated two downs just like the Adams flag, but was assessed for 15 yards rather than five.
All told the Jets had 7.5 Harm, which is decently below our bad day threshold of 10.0 Harm in a single game. Or if we’re discussing the premise of the headline, there’s no measurement that suggests that the refs significantly detracted from the Jets’ ability to play the game.
Buffalo Bills
Meanwhile, Buffalo’s total sum for the day was 13.4 Harm, nearly double that of the Jets. See? I wasn’t lying about the lopsided penalty results. That headline promised two things though. It’s clear that by any measure there was a lopsided penalty outcome, but did it have an impact? I think so. One of the two intentional grounding penalties on quarterback Josh Allen did in fact stall the drive. Who knows if the Bills could have ran the score up even higher if not for that.
That’s me being a bit petty, so here’s the real moral of the story. Yes, penalties impact the game. Yes, the Bills had way worse outcomes than the Jets when it came to flags in this game. Ultimately though, it’s rare to see the refs significantly alter the scoreboard.
I should also discuss the idea not just of volume, but in bias. The answer is “no.” The refs weren’t biased. Both intentional grounding flags on Allen (12 yards and one down) were legitimate. Wide receiver Keon Coleman’s offensive pass interference was also an obvious flag (1o yard assessed + 16 yards negated + 2 downs negated = 4.6 Harm). Safety Cole Bishop picking up an opponent completely off the ground and slamming him to the ground was very clear too. None of the Bills’ flags were unwarranted.
There was the matter of this though as evidence of bias. Speaking of Cole Bishop, I’ve seen outraged fans that wanted this hit called for unnecessary roughness…
This was worth going back and looking and the replay confirmed what I thought live. Bishop is already starting his tackling motion as quarterback Justin Fields slides. Most importantly, there’s no contact to the head with the hit. If you watch the slow-motion version a few times, you’ll also notice that Bishop has stopped moving forward. It’s Field’s momentum for the most part that makes it look like such a big hit. There’s nothing in here that should remotely be a flag.
So to summarize, there’s no evidence of the refs being biased and all measurements point toward Buffalo having a significantly worse day than the Jets as it relates to flags.
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