gtaz21
Groundskeeper
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What's with the penalty disparity between the Saints and their opponents?
The New Orleans Saints have overcome plenty of adversity this year, ranging from the five-week loss of starting quarterback Drew Brees to an opening-half schedule that saw them travel to play four …
saintswire.usatoday.com
Yeah, here it goes ... I TOLD YOU SO.
This article is exactly what stat I was saying I wanted to see. What is the comparison between Saints opponents' number of penalties when they play the Saints vs their number of penalties when they don't play the Saints. Also, what kind of impact are those penalties having in the games? In this article, a sportswriter has done just what I asked for. He went to an analytics company and got them to crunch the numbers. Verdict? The disparity of Saints penalties vs their opponents is the largest its been in their opponents favor since they started keep track of the data 20 years ago. What else? Guess who the least penalized team is in the NFL? Yep, that's right ... whoever is playing the Saints that week. Which is what I thought. It doesn't matter whether you're one of the most penalized teams in the NFL or one of the least penalized teams in the NFL. If you're playing the Saints, you will be the least penalized team in the NFL for a week. That is proof-positive that the NFL is shafting the Saints week-in-and-week-out.
Also, Saints opponents get the most first downs via penalty than the opponents of any other team in the NFL. That answers the question of what kind of impact are the penalties having on the game. There can be no bigger impact than repeatedly extending drives for teams.
The only question remaining to be answered is, WHY? It could be revenge for introducing the PI challenge to the game. It could be that the NFL doesn't want the Saints in the Super Bowl. It could go way back to Bountygate. Or, it could be all of the above. I don't care. I just think it sucks.