.Net scoop is hitting the internet - opponents penalties

So a couple weeks back we had a good thread on here about how the Seahawks opponents are the least penalized of anyone in the NFL - when playing us.

5 of 12 teams have had their season low penalties vs the Hawks.

Pete Carroll has mentioned it. ET mentioned it. Now the media is finally starting to take notice:

http://www.fieldgulls.com/seahawks-anal ... eam-in-nfl



That graph says it all. There is everyone else inside the mean. There are the Seahawks way the hell outside the norm.

And before you say it's because they're the defending champs, here's the stats for this year and last year:

Team Opponent Penalty Bias
Seattle -2.407954545
N.Y. Jets -1.44469697
Denver -1.141322314
Kansas City -0.907575758
Dallas -0.773002755
Cleveland -0.749035813
Atlanta -0.656060606
Houston -0.624517906
Carolina -0.587626263
New England -0.559366391
Indianapolis -0.502754821
St. Louis -0.440495868
N.Y. Giants -0.321212121
Tennessee -0.270661157
Green Bay -0.214646465
Miami -0.094393939
New Orleans -0.058838384
Pittsburgh 0.079393939
Chicago 0.194123049
Buffalo 0.243030303
Detroit 0.394065657
Minnesota 0.455922865
Baltimore 0.520606061
Tampa Bay 0.634986226
Arizona 0.634986226
Jacksonville 0.674931129
Oakland 0.728650138
Cincinnati 0.857713499
San Francisco 1.15785124
Philadelphia 1.498737374
San Diego 1.656060606
Washington 2.301136364

Team Opponent Penalty Bias (2013)
Chicago -1.60879
Cincinnati -1.3496
Jacksonville -1.21868
Washington -1.06227
Carolina -0.89372
San Francisco -0.67656
Oakland -0.61355
Pittsburgh -0.54255
New Orleans -0.48571
Detroit -0.48462
Seattle -0.32821
Tennessee -0.30476
N.Y. Jets -0.26882
Denver -0.08932
Miami 0.048901
Minnesota 0.065568
Philadelphia 0.075458
St. Louis 0.123443
San Diego 0.151648
Kansas City 0.210989
Atlanta 0.267315
Green Bay 0.40989
Tampa Bay 0.410003
Houston 0.427381
N.Y. Giants 0.43663
Cleveland 0.46568
Arizona 0.489377
New England 0.568526
Dallas 0.677289
Buffalo 0.813708
Indianapolis 0.891667
Baltimore 2.354382

http://www.reddit.com/r/Seahawks/commen ... alysis_oc/

If teams were really focused the week they played the Seahawks (defending champions), they might play more disciplined football, but the 2013 Baltimore Ravens (defending champs) had the highest PAO in the league.

The second possibility is that the opposing teams are committing just as many penalties as they normally do, but that the referees are not calling them. Is there any explanation other than blatant league and referee bias?

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It's time 12's started calling foul. Get on the radios, get on the internet, get this in the NFL's face.

Really amazing. And not a good amazing. :34853_doh:

The NFL wants parity, the refs are there to help ensure it. Imagine how bad we be blowing other teams out if not for this penalty disparity.

The only explanation other than referee bias is that the Seahawks are indeed committing more penalites than the other teams. That doesn't seem very likely (especially when our opponents get fewer penalties playing us than they usually do...that tells me the refs are so busy watching the Seahawks that they miss what the other guys are doing) but we have also gotten away with some things this year so I'm just not sure what to believe.

Do you theorize that the referees have actually been instructed by the NFL, or that it's more of an unconscious bias?

Every week each officiating crew is told by the NFL which penalties to emphasize. This is fact. Perhaps it's just "coincidence" that each week the refs we get are told to emphasize pre-snap and procedure stuff that the 'Hawks aren't good at and largely ignore other stuff.

Illuminati!

The most interesting part is how the previous NFL Champion was the luckiest team in terms of discrepancy the year before. And that team (the 2013 Ravens) were one of the league's most penalized teams when they won it all in 2012. Their situation was similar to Seattle's, but their treatment by officials was the total opposite.

Basically, the data makes it look like the NFL is out to get the Seahawks in 2014, to knock them down a peg. Very hard to look at that data and think anything else. Could just be a coincidence, but it still looks really bad.

In my nearly 59 years I've never met a multiple occurrence coincidence that really was.

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it's enemy action.
Ian Fleming, "Bond" author

twisted_steel2":wcvypsp2 said:

Really amazing. And not a good amazing. :34853_doh:

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Hmm....

Prediction: Penalties will be close to even this week's game because it's made the media and then the following week when no one's paying attention it'll be 3 to 1 again in favor of Frisco.

It hasn't hampered our defense. The 5 yard holding penalties are no big deal and the occasional PI is a cheap price to pay for blanketing receivers on all of our other snaps.

It has definitely been a problem for us on offense, especially in the red-zone. I was looking at our red zone conversion efficiency earlier and trying to understand why it was such a problem, and holding penalties/false starts in the red zone are a major factor.

If the Sea hawks had the average number of presnap penalties then the graph wouldn't look so skewed. Stop the offsides on Defense and false starts on Off and we won't have a problem. When it comes to Defensive holding and PI we are right around league average.

Rocket":mi2s50fb said:

In my nearly 59 years I've never met a multiple occurrence coincidence that really was.

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it's enemy action.
Ian Fleming, "Bond" author

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Two rocks in a row at an archaeological site are coincidence; three in a row shows intelligent design and intentionality.

Three times is indeed intentional.

Okay, so like, we were discussing the Tight End position a lot here in recent weeks, then that got shored-up.

We talked a LOT about the defense here for months too, then that woke up in a big way.

So, with this penalty data we encouraged, that makes three rocks now, right? Intelligent design.

FINALLY! I've been waiting and waiting for someone with the statistical horsepower to do this analysis. We still don't know why it's happening, but we finally know: It's happening.

And remember folks. This isn't about calls against the Hawks. It really has next to nothing to do with penalties that go against our team. It's all about the calls on the opponents, and how mystically, magically, they seem to play soooo much cleaner against Seattle than they do against anybody else.

They're just not calling stuff against the opposition.

kearly":16a16dll said:

The most interesting part is how the previous NFL Champion was the luckiest team in terms of discrepancy the year before. And that team (the 2013 Ravens) were one of the league's most penalized teams when they won it all in 2012. Their situation was similar to Seattle's, but their treatment by officials was the total opposite.

Basically, the data makes it look like the NFL is out to get the Seahawks in 2014, to knock them down a peg. Very hard to look at that data and think anything else. Could just be a coincidence, but it still looks really bad.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the sample size argues against coincidence IMO. Too bad; guess it's something we'll have to overcome.

I was looking at the schedule, and if there's any grand conspiracy by the NFL to make their soap opera more interesting, it is this:

On the 21st we go to Arizona for a Sunday night game. What a story if the teams had the same win loss records on that day?
The defending champs fighting back from a tough season for a chance at the division title, and the Cardinals, hoping to make it to the big game on the year it's hosted in AZ.

Will it be the big bad Seahawks again? Or is there a new powerhouse from the NFC West?

Stay tuned, dear viewers.

Guys tweet this out, share the link, let's get this info out there.

Can't hurt. :th2thumbs:

HawkerD":2vlt8p5b said:

If the Sea hawks had the average number of presnap penalties then the graph wouldn't look so skewed. Stop the offsides on Defense and false starts on Off and we won't have a problem. When it comes to Defensive holding and PI we are right around league average.

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No....

This graph is not about how many penalties we have. ITs about the deviation between opponents penalties when they play us vs other teams.

Your comment isnt the only one to think this, but I quoted it regardless.

To reiterate. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE NUMBER OF PENALTIES WE COMMIT!!!! This has to do with the other team NOT being penalized.

This is a fascinating part:

Let's take a look at the Seahawks. The Seahawks have z-scores of -2.566 for PYAO and -2.939 for PAO. The probability of achieving that PYAO in an unbiased environment is 0.005144 (0.51%), or 1 out of 194 times. Even worse, the probability of achieving a PAO 2.939 SD below average is 0.001646 (0.16%), or 1 out of 607 times. In a 32 team league, we should expect a team to get as few penalties on its opponent as the Seahawks have so far this season once every 19 seasons.

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