USA Today article of analysis of Saints penalty disparity (4 Viewers)

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Cage1 said:
Dang, bro, you missed the entire point of the article. I'm guessing you didn't read it. It's not (only) about OUR penalties. It's about the dropoff of penalties called on all of our opponents when, and only when, they face us.

Now Girod Street endzone does do an in-depth look at the "discretionary" calls against us like holding and hands to the face and whatnot, and there's a huge uptick of those vs. our opponents as well.

I mean if you don't like numbers and analytics and statistics, that's cool. But for people who do, this is fascinating. No one knows WHY and these articles don't answer that question. Only the 'what'. And the 'what' is definitely there. And it's absolutely crazy.
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The folks that are hell bent on trying to say...”GET OFF THE CONSPIRACY TRAIN” are probably the folks that actually believe there IS a conspiracy. Contrarians they are.

I do not believe in a conspiracy here, but no one can deny the statistics. Why is there such an apparent disparity this year? Highly likely, this year’s Saints team has become undisciplined due to a more aggressive approach and are pushing the limits of the rules. Once a team has established a pattern, they have set the tone for themselves. It could also be the overall quality of the officials. Young, inexperienced, egotistical, self-centered mentalities trying to show who is boss. Or a combination. Maybe the new officials simply do not like the jawing of Payton, or Juicy Fruit. Who knows? But the facts are, the Saints and the penalties have to get corrected, or it will be a quick exit from the playoffs. We shall see.
 
ElGatoNegro said:
It just isn't though, which is my whole point. Looking at the graph posted ere leaves us with several options when considering the data as is:

1) The officiating is biased against the saints
2) The saints make it easier for opponents to play mistake free football
3) Opponents are more disciplined in preparing for the saints
4) Is down to chance and our sample size is way too small to accurately reflect it

Statistics don't work the way most of you expect they do. They almost never prove anything. They simply suggest that events are more or less likely to occur. And with the given sample sizes they show nothing at all (at least the way it's been presented in this thread).

Also, every single teams forums has threads where people are convinced the refs are out to get them:

Refs Screwing Us!!!

As if we don’t have enough problems we make of our own...jeez us!!! if it ain’t us it’s the world
boards.atlantafalcons.com

Those Cheating Refs

This is a pattern I have posted about for years. Yesterday 32 Million fans watched the Cowboys & Bills. With 1:45 left in the second quarter and Buffalo up by 6, a pass from Prescott bounces to a Bill for an interception at the Dallas 42. Buffalo looks to get at least a FG and go into...
cowboyszone.com
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But there is no analytical data associated with their posts, you could argue! Just saying bro!
 
To the guys insisting that it’s all Saints’ fault for the penalties... you are ridiculous. Watching any game this year, particularly the first two and the last four, is enough to understand that there’s a bias. I’m not a conspiracy guy, but the bias is plain obvious. Several huge wrong calls against us, none against our opponents. We’re watched through a microscope all the time, every holding and every single slight PI, while our opponents blatantly hold Cam and never get a flag. Just-plain-obvious.
 
Super44 said:
But there is no analytical data associated with their posts, you could argue! Just saying bro!
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Exactly, everyone thinks they are getting screwed no one can prove it. I'm neither a troll nor a ref, just a fan with a cursory understanding of how stats actually work.

There may be a conspiracy (I don' t believe there is), but the stats as presented here and in the other article by SaintJ don't prove or even suggest anything.

So from where I'm sitting all of this moaning looks like it's driven by confirmation bias due to what happened last year and not any more relevant than the cowboys fans complaining about the refs in their games.
 
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What we do know is that the Saints are penalized more than their opponents but it’s speculation that we don’t deserve to be penalized more than our opponents. What needs to be done is for someone to look at not only every play but every player on every play, for every game, do see whether penalties occur. Oh, and since a Saints fan has inherent bias, it has to be done by someone objective. Have fun with that venture
 
ElGatoNegro said:
Exactly, everyone thinks they are getting screwed no one can prove it. I'm neither a troll nor a ref, just a fan with a cursory understanding of how stats actually work.

There may be a conspiracy (I don' t believe there is), but the stats as presented here and in the other article by SaintJ don't prove or even suggest anything.

So from where I'm sitting all of this moaning looks like it's driven by confirmation bias due to what happened last year and not any more relevant than the cowboys fans complaining about the refs in their games.
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Ummm a "cursory" understanding??
 
ElGatoNegro said:
It just isn't though, which is my whole point. Looking at the graph posted ere leaves us with several options when considering the data as is:

1) The officiating is biased against the saints
2) The saints make it easier for opponents to play mistake free football
3) Opponents are more disciplined in preparing for the saints
4) Is down to chance and our sample size is way too small to accurately reflect it

Statistics don't work the way most of you expect they do. They almost never prove anything. They simply suggest that events are more or less likely to occur. And with the given sample sizes they show nothing at all (at least the way it's been presented in this thread).

Also, every single teams forums has threads where people are convinced the refs are out to get them:

Refs Screwing Us!!!

As if we don’t have enough problems we make of our own...jeez us!!! if it ain’t us it’s the world
boards.atlantafalcons.com

Those Cheating Refs

This is a pattern I have posted about for years. Yesterday 32 Million fans watched the Cowboys & Bills. With 1:45 left in the second quarter and Buffalo up by 6, a pass from Prescott bounces to a Bill for an interception at the Dallas 42. Buffalo looks to get at least a FG and go into...
cowboyszone.com
Click to expand...

While I don't subscribe to the conspiracy theory I do believe there's a difference between a couple blown calls and what we have going on this year. I think every ref in the league went into this season with the attitude they were going to watch us like Hawks after we made them look bad last season. I don't dispute that most of the calls they make are actual penalties but I do think they're penalties that are no called as much as we're getting. I don't think it's to keep us out of the Superbowl or to control who gets to the SB....it's just the refs taking last season personal and getting their payback.
 
ElGatoNegro said:
Exactly, everyone thinks they are getting screwed no one can prove it. I'm neither a troll nor a ref, just a fan with a cursory understanding of how stats actually work.

There may be a conspiracy (I don' t believe there is), but the stats as presented here and in the other article by SaintJ don't prove or even suggest anything.

So from where I'm sitting all of this moaning looks like it's driven by confirmation bias due to what happened last year and not any more relevant than the cowboys fans complaining about the refs in their games.
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Again though and this is something that has zero relevancy to the data provided, for Saints games. The whining by Dallas fans! Their whining, just as with any other fans, of any other team, does not justify your point. While you can connect and say the data provided solely for Saints games, cannot be used to prove a conspiracy is underway, you cannot use whining of other teams, to support your view. Pretty simple that whatever is perceived by fans of other teams and what is happening to their respective teams, is baseless info. as fact towards no conspiracy. You need to stick to the data that relates to the Saints to prove your point, or disprove other. I could use a court case to compare, but no need to. I think you get the picture.
 
Super44 said:
Again though and this is something that has zero relevancy to the data provided, for Saints games. The whining by Dallas fans! Their whining, just as with any other fans, of any other team, does not justify your point. While you can connect and say the data provided solely for Saints games, cannot be used to prove a conspiracy is underway, you cannot use whining of other teams, to support your view. Pretty simple that whatever is perceived by fans of other teams and what is happening to their respective teams, is baseless info. as fact towards no conspiracy. You need to stick to the data that relates to the Saints to prove your point, or disprove other. I could use a court case to compare, but no need to. I think you get the picture.
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I am not making any assertions here, other than the assertion that the data (as presented) does not show what the OP thinks it does. This is a fact. It can be calculated mathematically to show that the sample size is not big enough to draw the types of conclusions OP is trying to draw (in fact it states this in the original linked article, which OP just chose to ignore). So as far as the data relates my point is 100% undeniably correct and completely unrelated to whether there is actually a conspiracy (there may be some conspiracy, it just isn't apparent from or implied by the data provided).

I'm raising the point of other fan bases also complaining (and I'm sure every single team has this) about the refs hopefully to show how cringe worthy it can be perceived from an outsiders perspective.

I'm all for making points about the quality of the refereeing and suggestions on how to make it better (and I'll be one of the first to agree that it could get significantly better). But trying to bastageise mathematics in order to pretend it shows something which it clearly doesn't, just so you can play the victim card just doesn't sit right with me.
 
So 30 is the magic number based on many statistics reference books.....how then do we not have enough evidence. There have been 34 first down only flags, we are -33 compared to our opponents for ALL flags. The list goes on.
 
the_mc said:
So 30 is the magic number based on many statistics reference books.....how then do we not have enough evidence. There have been 34 first down only flags, we are -33 compared to our opponents for ALL flags. The list goes on.
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I have no idea what you mean or what statistics books you are referencing. But there aren't any magic numbers.
 

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