ESPN Report. Disturbing Stats regarding penalties and Saints (1 Viewer)

I forgot that we had a wacky time machine and Benson was dead during Bountygate.
Not Bountygate. Speaking of the no call and ensuing bullying by the league.

But appreciate the sarcasm. Very helpful. 🙄
 
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one of these is not like the others:


Here are the NFL teams whose opponents have been flagged the most in ...

the last four years
1. Steelers563
2. Titans540
3. Chiefs533
4. Bengals531
5. Falcons526
Surprise the Chiefs are on there really, I know one time I looked at those stats a couple years ago and it was consistently the Bengals and Chiefs at the top.

Steelers dont surprise me due to powerful ownership.
 
There was a guy who analyzed this back after the no call. Don’t know where you get the data but he plotted decades of calls against saints and calls against Saints opponents. Usually the ratio was against the saints but not necessarily by a wide margin but it shifted in favor I think in 2008 and tgg hewn REALLY in favor in 2009. IIRC, was less so but still in favor until about 2012. Then it abruptly returned to favor of saints opponents, where it has stayed.
I always thought Hasletts Saints got the bad end of that stick every year after the 2000 Season. They would get called for anything and everything that end up helping the opposing team, especially the Falcons.
 
You do understand the power Goodell has, right?
What would you have her do exactly? Without looking the gift horse in the mouth?

It's the absolute beauty of the NFL cabal. Can't do shirt. Stay in your lane. You make millions so shut up. And the NFL PR machine is so strong, they would turn any negative around within a week. Between owners, media, journalists etc they basically "own". You think Adam Schefter gets access to info because he is Adam Schefter?

I get folks don't want to see the conspiracy, because it would upend what they always believed to be true...the NFL was based on fair play. Sorry, it's not. They have agendas. They have reasons. And it all starts and ends with money.
Plenty of high powered executives don’t have any “real” power in the face of the owner or chairman or founder of their company. But they can influence and play the game and get things done anyway.

That’s how business works. Being one of 32 owners can carry some weight but not all are created equal.
 
How does incompetence explain one sided trends? At some point it would course correct, no?
Not necessarily. Statistically it's a fallacy to assume that something will balance out over the long run. Sure it will, on average, and given a large enough of a sample size. But if you flip a coin 50 times along with a bunch of friends to see who gets heads the most, and you end up with the worst run of tails, it doesn't necessarily mean that the coins are cheating although it can feel like it in the micro.

"The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy, occurs when an individual erroneously believes that a certain random event is less likely or more likely to happen based on the outcome of a previous event or series of events."
 
Not necessarily. Statistically it's a fallacy to assume that something will balance out over the long run. Sure it will, on average, and given a large enough of a sample size. But if you flip a coin 50 times along with a bunch of friends to see who gets heads the most, and you end up with the worst run of tails, it doesn't necessarily mean that the coins are cheating although it can feel like it in the micro.

"The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy, occurs when an individual erroneously believes that a certain random event is less likely or more likely to happen based on the outcome of a previous event or series of events."


I am not sure about that. if you run the scenario once, sure. But lets say run it every october for 4 years. Everyone uses the same coin they used the first year. And you lose EVERY single year, 4 times in a row. You might start to wonder if your coin is different from the others.
 
Not necessarily. Statistically it's a fallacy to assume that something will balance out over the long run. Sure it will, on average, and given a large enough of a sample size. But if you flip a coin 50 times along with a bunch of friends to see who gets heads the most, and you end up with the worst run of tails, it doesn't necessarily mean that the coins are cheating although it can feel like it in the micro.

"The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy, occurs when an individual erroneously believes that a certain random event is less likely or more likely to happen based on the outcome of a previous event or series of events."
The difference being that a coin has zero bias but, being run by human beings, the NFL has a very blatant bias.

The article states the refs "missed" the PI call on LA. The refs did not "miss" the call at all. That would imply they didn't see it, yet a still of the play distinctly showed 3 refs looking right at the pass interference. The refs failed to make the call that they witnessed. The reason they failed to make the call is the NFL bias against the Saints. Period.
 
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It occurs to me that there is something that can be done about this. If a sports book were to publicly announce that they're no longer taking parlay bets on penalties in games involving the Saints because "Saints opponent" always wins the under it would be enough of a 'dog bites man' story to gain national traction.
 
This statistic is at best alarming. The article would have been stronger had ESPN consulted with a statistician to determine the odds of the Saints ranking so low for four consecutive years. My thoughts:

1. I generally do not believe in conspiracies, and I do not believe that a conspiracy--a concerted agreement among a high percentage of officials--is the reason for this statistical anomaly. Think of how many people would have to know and agree to such an unethical and illegal course of action. And think of how much the league--the collective value of the 32 franchises may be $120 billion--would be destroyed were such an agreement to be discussed, much less proven. And think of how many officials and others would have to be involved? No, I do not believe there is a conspiracy.

2. For those who say the league simply hates the Saints, be reminded that the league put Sean Payton on its most prestigious committee, the competition committee. Sean chose to leave. I am sure he had substantial reasons for that decision, but for a coach who feels that his team is not being fairly treated, it is far better for that coach to have a seat at that table where major decisions are made than not to have a seat.

3. My belief is that the numbers are statistically so bizarre--would the odds be 1 out of 1,000?--that a number of NFL officials truly dislike the Saints organization and that for some their bias results in the Saints' opponents, and not the Saints, getting the close calls. The reasons for the hostility could be embarrassment over the no-call in the Rams game and Payton's actions on the competition committee. We do know that as a whole the officials like their current structure of being allowed to work full-time and work part-time as an NFL official; I would think a good number feel financially threatened by proposals to have officials work full-time.
 
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Not Bountygate. Speaking of the no call and ensuing bullying by the league.

But appreciate the sarcasm. Very helpful. 🙄
Always trying to help -- it's why I'm here!

The no-call had nothing to do with us -- whoever was playing the Rams that day was a dead team walking unless you blew them out so badly there was nothing the refs could do.

And the bullying obviously pre-dates Gayle.
 
Not necessarily. Statistically it's a fallacy to assume that something will balance out over the long run. Sure it will, on average, and given a large enough of a sample size. But if you flip a coin 50 times along with a bunch of friends to see who gets heads the most, and you end up with the worst run of tails, it doesn't necessarily mean that the coins are cheating although it can feel like it in the micro.

"The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy, occurs when an individual erroneously believes that a certain random event is less likely or more likely to happen based on the outcome of a previous event or series of events."
False analogy.

This isn't a theoretically "objective" test that can be replicated over and over again largely unaffected by outside forces that have a variable effect on any individual test.

The whole point here is that outside forces ARE creating an anomalous result -- the feeling among more than a few referees that Sean Payton needs to be reminded who is in charge.
 
There was a guy who analyzed this back after the no call. Don’t know where you get the data but he plotted decades of calls against saints and calls against Saints opponents. Usually the ratio was against the saints but not necessarily by a wide margin but it shifted in favor I think in 2008 and tgg hewn REALLY in favor in 2009. IIRC, was less so but still in favor until about 2012. Then it abruptly returned to favor of saints opponents, where it has stayed.
Sounds about right. Most years the Saints were an irrelevant also-ran so they weren't going to get much help from the refs. So much of refereeing is subjective. There is no way a human being can call a game 100% objectively. It just isn't possible. Post Katrina the Saints were a feel good story and they were exciting to watch. They were relevant again and we saw some calls go our way.

I will say this about the refs though, they seemed to let the boys play this season when it came to pass interference. There were so many 3rd down stops where there was enough contact to throw a flag but they showed some restraint. Instead of finishing with the most interference penalties the Saints only finished with the 7th most interference penalties.
 
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