Saints being officiated differently from opponents (1 Viewer)

I am still working on this. An in-depth play-by-play analysis of every penalty called in every Saints game this year. I have all of the raw data, I just need about 10 hours to get it all together, I got really busy late last week and over the weekend. This is NOT a "how many" penalties have been called etc., type of analysis, it is WHEN plays get called back because of penalties. (Such as third or fourth down stops, Offensive Holding calls on big gains, TD's called back, etc.) It is glaring, from my look at the raw data so far, it is NOT a statistical anomaly, it is a script from the head office to mess with the Saints.
 
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Mich - I respect your point very much. And it's likely spot-on.

But I am just going to throw this up in case it has some validity. Earlier in my career, I was an exec at Fortune 15 Valero Energy, 28,000 employees. A huge company. It was an eye-opener for me to see how many perceived problems of the very senior execs were handled. We would sit in 2-hour meetings with the leadership team listening to the plan and how it would be implemented. Most plans seemed somewhat reasonable. Then I would get a call for a private meeting with my boss, where I am being told, "Forget what you learned in the meeting. 'The Word' from above is saying to tear the leader of that project to pieces. Give them no support at all and be a roadblock when you can do it without being caught!"

And "The Word"got implemented even though it was totally against the agreed upon plan by the leadership plan.
This is the point I was sort of making in my thread about officiating. It's far too easy and dismissive to say that Saints fans are whining. When you look at the numbers, they show an ugly trend and it's frustrating. There can be an unofficial "official" mandate to really stick it to the Saints or any team really, in order to control the narrative. It can be as subtle as, make sure you focus on rub routes this week and you KNOW a team that utilizes rub routes a lot will be affected, meanwhile you are not calling holding penalties that are obvious, and it allows one team to flourish while the other flounders. Or it could be specific, and far more egregious with, any 50/50 calls need not go this team's way.

My mom worked at a company once, and even though the lunch breaks were officially 45 minutes, people routinely took 1-1.5 hour lunches and no one had a problem with it. Until one day, management had an issue with one guy, so off the books they told everyone else, make SURE you're back on time for lunch. They were, he wasn't, and they used that to help fire him. Stuff like this goes on all of the time, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that SOMEONE has an agenda against the Saints and can implement various undetectable means to accomplish it.

Last year when we lost to the Falcons, they had like 6 first downs by penalty we had 0. Their only penalties were false starts which really doesn't kill a drive like holding. It was frustrating to watch. Yet you watch the Saints this year and there are SO many holding calls against us on both sides of the ball, meanwhile are you telling me opposing defenses are playing PERFECT football against us.

Even in this last game when the Panthers missed the FG the ref waited well until the play was over and threw one of the most enthusiastic flags I have ever seen. The numbers and my eyes are telling me, there is a bias. Brees said in an interview after this game, our style of play hasn't changed, the officiating has though.
 
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This is the point I was sort of making in my thread about officiating. It's far to easy and dismissive to say that Saints fans are whining. When you look at the numbers, they show an ugly trend and it's frustrating. There can be an unofficial "official" mandate to really stick it to the Saints or any team really, in order to control the narrative. It can be as subtle as, make sure you focus on rub routes this week and you KNOW a team that utilizes rub routes a lot will be effective, meanwhile you are not calling holding penalties that are obvious, and it allows one team to flourish while the other flounders. Or it could be specific, and far more egregious with, any 50/50 calls need not go this team's way.

My mom worked at a company once, and even though the lunch breaks were officially 45 minutes, people routinely took 1-1.5 hour lunches and no one had a problem with it. Until one day, management had an issue with one guy, so off the books they told everyone else, make SURE you're back on time for lunch. They were, he wasn't, and they used that to help fire him. Stuff like this goes on all of the time, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that SOMEONE has an agenda against the Saints and can implement various undetectable means to accomplish it.

Last year when we lost to the Falcons, they had like 6 first downs by penalty we had 0. Their only penalties were false starts which really doesn't kill a drive like holding. It was frustrating to watch. Yet you watch the Saints this year and there are SO many holding calls against us on both sides of the ball, meanwhile are you telling me opposing defenses are playing PERFECT football against us.

Even in this last game when the Panthers missed the FG the ref waited well until the play was over and threw one of the most enthusiastic flags I have ever seen. The numbers and my eyes are telling me, there is a bias. Brees said in an interview after this game, our style of play hasn't changed, the officiating has though.

Simply excellent!!! Thx much!
 
Is there a way to flood Al Riveron with e-mails/petitions until this becomes "a thing"?

YES YES YES!!! Great idea. Is there some way to find a valid email address for the NFL where we as Who Dats can flood the NFL with complaints. And the more stats we can use, the more powerful the message. Maybe we could get lucky and get like a Florio during Bountygate who has a mass listening audience who will take on the cause.

I hate the part of me that sits around whining. And I do - unfortunately. I love your idea and if you need any team members for this, I'll support you.

I don't know what it costs to get a billboard for a few months. But if someone can derive a single stat that clearly shows bias, it would be awesome to put that on a big billboard that every official would see on their way from the airport to Downtown.
 
Mich - I respect your point very much. And it's likely spot-on.

But I am just going to throw this up in case it has some validity. Earlier in my career, I was an exec at Fortune 15 Valero Energy, 28,000 employees. A huge company. It was an eye-opener for me to see how many perceived problems of the very senior execs were handled. We would sit in 2-hour meetings with the leadership team listening to the plan and how it would be implemented. Most plans seemed somewhat reasonable. Then I would get a call for a private meeting with my boss, where I am being told, "Forget what you learned in the meeting. 'The Word' from above is saying to tear the leader of that project to pieces. Give them no support at all and be a roadblock when you can do it without being caught!"

And "The Word"got implemented even though it was totally against the agreed upon plan by the leadership plan.


Valero = Big Money.

NFL = Big Money.

there are ONLY 32 owners in the entire WORLD who, at the end of the day, are looking to protect and maximize their investment.
 
It doesn't take a scientific study to know this; anyone paying attention to our games can see it. Still, I found this tweet very interesting:


It's not going to "abate" because Riveron says it won't. Not publicly, but to his Ref's on the field.
 
And we are still winning. Wonder how mad they are on the inside lol


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Until recent times, people accepted the fact that official calls are judgmental. People understood human error is a fact of life. Official calls were accepted as long as they were non-biased.

The blatant no call last year, changed all that. This year, there is more pressure on the referees. Fans from all teams are questioning all calls.

Whether they realize or not, I think referees are, "Taking their frustrations out on the Saints".
 
If it is not being managed from above, then it is just individual refs or ref groups applying bias on their own? That would be more likely, but it probably be more inconsistent as different ref groups cover the Saints. Guess the worst case is all refs are POed at us because of noise made after Ram game last year.
After a few lopsided called games early in the season, we had a few that were called fairly, then since the bye its been lopsided again. Maybe they thought with Teddy @ QB they didn't need to assist the other teams or maybe its only some of the crews. In our 11 games we have had 10 of the 17 crews, we had Brad Allen twice. Only one of the crews had an official from the no call game.
The 7 officials on the field for the no call came from 5 different crews. Of those 7 officials only one has had a Saints game and none in the Dome. The Line Judge who was at the Line of Scrimmage on the opposite side of the field was in our game @ Jacksonville.
 
I can't enjoy the Saints games like I should be able to, especially the close ones. Every time we make a big stop on D or have an explosive play on O, I'm caught in fan purgatory for about 5 - 10 seconds to make sure a flag isn't thrown. That's not what watching football should be like; takes away instant celebrations with who I'm watching the game with. Complete bs

Feel the exact same way. After every big plan I'm looking for, and expecting, a flag. That's not enjoyable.
 

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