Re: the Chiefs get all the calls. I respect Dave S. for admitting his potential bias. There's also an easy solution (if you care enough): look at the data and the film. Since Mahomes became a starter, the Chiefs have had 3 seasons of net negative penalties and 3 seasons of net positive penalties. That doesn't suggest much of a bias.
Re: the Chiefs get all the calls. I respect Dave S. for admitting his potential bias. There's also an easy solution (if you care enough): look at the data and the film. Since Mahomes became a starter, the Chiefs have had 3 seasons of net negative penalties and 3 seasons of net positive penalties. That doesn't suggest much of a bias.
Now, what about high-leverage situations? Well, for example, the Chiefs had 4 TDs taken off the board due to offensive penalties in 2023 while opponents had no TDs reversed.
You can also look at the film: nearly all of the high-leverage calls that helped the Chiefs these past several years were clear-cut penalties. (although I do think that OPI on Kittle in Super Bowl 54 was probably of the ticky-tack variety). Likewise, some of the calls that hurt the Chiefs were ticky-tack while most were legit. That's how it goes.
Penalty variance does happen, but it's more a function of officiating style and competence than intent, and it tends to even out over time. What doesn't tend to even out, as Mike noted, is our emotional attachment to a specific event and the way it colors our beliefs. That takes hard work by the individual to overcome, and most of us don't want to or usually need to make the effort.
This is great! And I did comb through penalty data a bit. There were no smoking guns and I had a lot of topics to cover, so I did not run with it.
Another thing I wanted to point out: Didya ever notice that the big penalty storylines almost NEVER come out of a Sunday 1 PM game? They are always Sunday Nighters or the big late-afternoon Chiefs or Cowboys broadcast. That's a sure sign that attention bias is at play: 20 penalties could go against, say, the Titans in a loss to the Colts, and no one would be talking about it.
One of the most high profile calls in a Chiefs game was the 2018 AFC Championship where KC intercepted Tom Brady late in the game, only to find out Dee Ford forgot what side of the field he was supposed to line up on. So at that point it was “Look, the Patriots got bailed out by the refs and the Chiefs don’t get any help” only it was the correct call. And the Patriots ended up getting SB #6
I saw a deep analysis of a similar question on a soccer site a few years back “why do Manchester United get all the calls/non-calls?”
The answer similar to the above was “they don’t”, but the analysis did find that home field advantage essentially boils down to officials’ bias as crowd reactions influence decisions.
This could be analysed for NFL but it’s a very big piece of work I’m not volunteering to do.
Re: the Chiefs get all the calls. I respect Dave S. for admitting his potential bias. There's also an easy solution (if you care enough): look at the data and the film. Since Mahomes became a starter, the Chiefs have had 3 seasons of net negative penalties and 3 seasons of net positive penalties. That doesn't suggest much of a bias.
Now, what about high-leverage situations? Well, for example, the Chiefs had 4 TDs taken off the board due to offensive penalties in 2023 while opponents had no TDs reversed.
You can also look at the film: nearly all of the high-leverage calls that helped the Chiefs these past several years were clear-cut penalties. (although I do think that OPI on Kittle in Super Bowl 54 was probably of the ticky-tack variety). Likewise, some of the calls that hurt the Chiefs were ticky-tack while most were legit. That's how it goes.
Penalty variance does happen, but it's more a function of officiating style and competence than intent, and it tends to even out over time. What doesn't tend to even out, as Mike noted, is our emotional attachment to a specific event and the way it colors our beliefs. That takes hard work by the individual to overcome, and most of us don't want to or usually need to make the effort.
This is great! And I did comb through penalty data a bit. There were no smoking guns and I had a lot of topics to cover, so I did not run with it.
Another thing I wanted to point out: Didya ever notice that the big penalty storylines almost NEVER come out of a Sunday 1 PM game? They are always Sunday Nighters or the big late-afternoon Chiefs or Cowboys broadcast. That's a sure sign that attention bias is at play: 20 penalties could go against, say, the Titans in a loss to the Colts, and no one would be talking about it.
I am no one.
One of the most high profile calls in a Chiefs game was the 2018 AFC Championship where KC intercepted Tom Brady late in the game, only to find out Dee Ford forgot what side of the field he was supposed to line up on. So at that point it was “Look, the Patriots got bailed out by the refs and the Chiefs don’t get any help” only it was the correct call. And the Patriots ended up getting SB #6
I saw a deep analysis of a similar question on a soccer site a few years back “why do Manchester United get all the calls/non-calls?”
The answer similar to the above was “they don’t”, but the analysis did find that home field advantage essentially boils down to officials’ bias as crowd reactions influence decisions.
This could be analysed for NFL but it’s a very big piece of work I’m not volunteering to do.
I thought the question was, why does Manchester United get whatever stoppage time they need at Old Trafford? 😄