When it came to most of the universe, it felt like the Buffalo Bills were the underdogs heading to Gillette Stadium to take on the New England Patriots. Vegas odds gave a slight edge to Buffalo, but there wasn’t much beyond that favoring the Bills. Well, guess what? It looked ugly for the first half and then it got real pretty for Bills Mafia in a hurry. It felt like the Patriots just completely collapsed, and it was glorious.
There’s a great bit in a classic episode of The Simpsons where Lisa and
Ralph are on a date and Lisa shoots down Ralph’s affection. Bart, in typical sadistic fashion, shows Lisa the tape showing her that you can “pinpoint the second his heart rips in half.”
Thanks to penalty data, I can pinpoint the second that New England collectively lost their nerve.
Standard and Advanced Metrics
Counts
It’s close to the end of the season and the league is trending to about the level of flags per game as they ended last season with. In 2024 (playoffs included), the league averaged 6.4 assessed flags per team per game and 7.56 flags called. I’m talking about this instead of the graphic above, because it’s very clear what the image is showing. Buffalo had a much, much cleaner day with yellow laundry than New England.
Yards
Last season ended with teams averaging 51.83 assessed yards per game, so once again the 2025 season is likely going to wind up nearly perfectly even with the 2024 season. These charts bear out pretty much exactly like you’d expect, too.
Penalty Harm
Buffalo Bills
Ha ha ha! I love when the graphs are silly looking, and this one is very silly looking. Linebacker Matt Milano’s unnecessary roughness flag was offset by one on running back Rhamondre Stevenson. The false start on wide receiver Joshua Palmer didn’t help things, but the sack on the very next play probably did more to kill the drive than the five-yard penalty.
It’s intriguing that head coach Mike Vrabel complained about the lack of holding flags on Buffalo when the only significant flag they had was offensive holding. That flag, by right guard O’Cyrus Torrence wiped out a four-yard touchdown by quarterback Josh Allen. For the formula, that’s 10 assessed yards + 4 negated yards + 7 negated points. Or 1.0 + 0.4 + 7.0 for 8.4 Harm.
Want to hear something else that’s crazy? That’s Torrence’s first flag of the season. Offensive linemen are typically the most penalized players in the league, but Torrence has done a tremendous job avoiding negative plays due to flag.
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots had 14.1 total Harm. That’s a decent amount over our bad day threshold of 10.0 Harm, and the second highest total Harm by a Bills’ opponent this season. I’ll give a quick formula check on the two highest flags, and then give you the Ralph Wiggum moment I promised earlier.
Safety Marte Mapu’s offensive holding flag came on a kickoff return. Wide receiver Kyle Williams (not the one we love) had a 47-yard return, but 25 of it was called back due to the flag. Whoops.
Cornerback Carlton Davis III’s defensive pass interference was for 15 yards. Since it came on third down, it gave Buffalo two free downs to work with in addition to the yardage.
One more detour before the Wiggum moment. In general, there were some oddities in the officiating. It’s 100% aggravating that the New England “catch” early on was not reviewed/overturned by the replay official. Making it even worse was the speed in which they acted to overturn the Buffalo catch. I want to be clear that overturning the Bills’ catch wasn’t a bad call, it just stuck out that there wasn’t a review of the earlier one.
If you were wondering, on the declined defensive pass interference that was on the play where the officials ruled that wide receiver Khalil Shakir and the defender had simultaneously possessed the ball, which then defaults to the receiver. Looking at it, I see Shakir pin it with one arm before his opponent, and I like that call.
Now for what I promised you. The exact second that the Patriots snapped and went into full panic mode was 5:04 left in the third quarter. That’s when safety Craig Woodson was flagged for defensive holding on third down to give the Bills a fresh set of downs.
At that point in the game, New England was up 24 – 14. The Bills were on the Patriots’ 13 and threatening to score again. Let’s add more context. This was the third drive after halftime (Bills, Pats, Bills). On the opening drive, Buffalo faced one third down that was easily converted as they marched nearly effortlessly down the field for a touchdown. New England’ offense came onto the field and the formerly porous defense forced a 3 & Out.
As the Bills once again effortlessly marched down the field, the Patriots had a shot to limit the damage to a field goal. Woodson flinched and the rest of the team flinched with him. Why do I say that?
Check that timestamp again. At 5:04 in the third quarter, there was only one-third of the game left to go. Prior to this point, New England has been called for one flag (the face mask). They were called for this one and seven more in 20 minutes of game time. That’s more than the league average amount of flags for an entire game, jammed into one-third of a full contest. Q3; 5:04. Mark it. That’s the exact second that the New England Patriots broke.
Cincinnati Bengals at Buffalo Bills
You might have noticed (or not) that there wasn’t a penalty recap last week for the Bills’ win over the Bengals. There was a delay in the information dropping and then some personal things got in the way. You know I’d never let the data slip away, though, since I need it for the season recap. So here are the usual graphics that would have been in the article. If there are any specific questions about this game’s penalties, ask in the comments and I’ll try to find time to answer them.
