Year-to-Year Penalty Consistency
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After Brent Barry of the San Antonio Spurs received an uncalled foul from L.A. Lakers guard Derek Fisher at the end of Game 4 of the NBA's Western Conference Finals on May 27, and the NBA admitted the next day that the foul that might have allowed Barry to tie the game at 93 should have been called, Mike Pereira, the NFL's VP of officiating, went on the NFL Network's Total Access program to discuss the role that officials in any sport should play in the final seconds of a game. Clamp it down or let them play?
"Human nature is, you don't want to be part of the outcome," Pereira told host Rich Eisen. "You hate to have that last-second foul that, as you said, could have led to the two free throws ... I have professed all the time that a foul in the fourth quarter is a foul in the first quarter, and you need to be consistent. I don't think it's fair to players to officiate any differently."
When Pereira said that he keeps data of each official's calls from quarter to quarter, that gave me the impetus to take the data we've gathered at Football Outsiders -- we have regular-season penalty databases from the 2004-2007 seasons -- and put together some numbers for those seasons. The table below shows a remarkable consistency in how the league calls penalties per quarter:
(Note the decreased total penalty numbers in 2006 and 2007 -- this is based on a concerted effort by the league to speed up games, and it's something we'll talk more about in the future.)
Inside the last two minutes of each quarter in 2007, penalties were called as follows: 14.2 percent of all first quarter calls (104), 23.6 percent in the second quarter (222), 11.8 percent in the third quarter (90), and 15.3 percent with two minutes or less left in the game (142). The only real bump is near the end of the first half.
However, while the "horizontal" numbers look pretty solid, the problem from year to year with NFL officiating crews is what I would call "vertical consistency" -- the number of penalties each crew calls per season, and the wildly divergent penalty numbers per crew in season. In 2007, the busiest crew (Ron Winter's) called 81 more penalties than the least active (Gerry Austin's) -- 250 to 169. The two penalties called most often each year are offensive holding and offensive false start. In 2007, Ed Hochuli's crew called 58 false starts to Austin's 26, and Winter's crew called 56 holds to Bill Carollo's 17 and Walt Coleman's 14.
It's all well and good for Pereira to preach consistency, but the audits have to work in more ways than one.
By
Doug Farrar
|
September 4, 2008; 7:36 AM ET
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Posted by: stewie | September 5, 2008 11:26 PM
wow. You write craptastic stuff
Posted by: joe | September 5, 2008 11:18 PM
That is one ugly chart. I have to second what Glengarry said. There are many more plays in the 2nd and 4th quarters than in the 1st or 3rd.
Here are the *penalty rates* (penalties per play) in each quarter over the last 8 regular seasons, declined penalties included:
1st Q: 3.1%
2nd Q: 3.0%
3rd Q: 2.7%
4th Q: 2.7%
Looks like a very slight decrease as the game goes on, but nothing that shows any change in referee attitudes towards the end of games.
But to really make any conclusions we'd have to separate close games from the others. Refs may have different attitudes if the game is on the line than if it's out of reach.
Posted by: Brian | September 4, 2008 5:22 PM
Absolutely scintillating! Stiffened my nips with all those wonderful stats! Keep up the good work Dougy! You're the Douchiest!
Posted by: DoucheFarrar | September 4, 2008 3:53 PM
I think a further level of analysis needs to be done here, at a minimum. Of course there are more penalties called in the last two minutes of the second and fourth quarters... there are more plays run in that stretch than at other times of the game, period. I wouldn't be surprised if its still a higher ratio of calls-to-noncalls inside 2MW but i think you need to take the math to the next level to check this.
Posted by: glengarry | September 4, 2008 12:28 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
what the duece man. If you like numbers that have no real meaning this is the best article ever. I have a number for you dougie. Zero. Numbers of props you've been given. Did you or have you ever blown your boss to move up? Dumb question. No other explanation for the fact that you have this job. Cause you sure as he'll failed journalism 101. First thing they teach ya, write about something. Anything. Your article looks like a sudoku gone wrong. We aren't all able to read binary you tool. Find tall building. Move to edge and jump. Thanks for playing