Episode 2 | NFL + Penalties

Ahhhh penalties. Everyone's least favorite aspect of a football game. We blame the refs, we yell at the TV and ultimately, we decide that the outcome was erroneously changed... but was it?

In this analysis, we look to see if penalties move the needle on winning and scoring points. The results were perhaps the most boring yet, nothing was significant and frankly nothing was close. It appears that penalties do not impact game outcomes in the ways that fans consistently theorize. In fact, it was impossible to find a team that was being favored with respect to penalties. The only three teams whose opponent penalty yards differed significantly from average were in the negative direction. That is to say, no teams are being favored by the refs, but some may be disfavored.

The above result probably has more to do with poor play and coaching than actual bias. The biggest conclusion I got from the analysis was that the refs are doing a pretty good job on the whole and perhaps catching more hate than is warranted. That being said, it only takes one bad call to ruin a game...