Well that game sucked. Like… really, really sucked. But it wasn’t because of the penalties! I know a couple seemed like a big deal at the time, but in the grand scheme of things, the flags the Buffalo Bills were called for had very little impact on the outcome of the game. I also don’t think the refs were perfect in this one, but the mistakes weren’t all that meaningful. The good news is that this recap should be way less aggravating than the actual game was.
Standard and Advanced Metrics
Penalty Counts
Now, I knew that they didn’t have a high
count like last week but I was actually a bit shocked to see only five flags were assessed on the Bills. Two were declined so seven were called in total but that’s five less than against the Chargers. Remember my philosophy on declined flags too. It’s not great it was called but something worse for your team happened on the snap so it’s not like the penalty hurt ya at all.
Penalty Yards
This was just as surprising to me. There was basically no yardage lost with both teams coming in way under average. Now if you take a look at official box scores, the Bills had 31 assessed yards. The difference is that a kick failing to reach the landing zone isn’t “assessed” any yards officially, the ball just “magically” starts at the 40 rather than the 35. I take the five yards and call it assessed. It doesn’t sit right with me that an enforced penalty that changes the spot of the ball gets recorded as a zero.
For the segue into the advanced metrics, a quick way to jack up the Harm rating is to have a bunch of impacted yards. The chart to the right is the first indicator that the Harm isn’t going to be very high. Neither team impacted/negated much yardage.
Penalty Harm
New England Patriots
The total Harm for the Patriots was 9.3, which approached our bad day threshold of 10.0 Harm, and is close enough to say there was some impact from flags. A large part of this was due to the offensive holding flag on Will Campbell. On 3rd & 7, Drake Maye scrambled for 10 yards to pick up the first. The flag negated those ten yards, was assessed for the usual ten, and negated two downs. The Patriots ended up punting as a result.
Marcus Jones’ defensive holding flag was similar. On 3rd & 16 the Bills dialed up an incomplete pass. In field goal range and only down by seven early on, it’s likely that Buffalo takes the field goal. Instead, the drive continues and Buffalo scores a touchdown. That touchdown was also made five yards easier thanks to a half-the-distance-to-the-goal flag courtesy of Mike Vrabel’s attitude.
The Patriots won, Vrabel called a good game, and they deserve that credit; but holy heck was that one of the most cringe, whiny, take my ball and go home temper tantrums I’ve seen in a long while.
Buffalo Bills
I said that the refs didn’t impact the outcome much for the Bills so let’s get right to it. They had a grand total of 5.9 Harm, which is the lowest single game total by anyone so far this season (second lowest was 7.6 by the Chargers).
The face mask by Sam Franklin was yards only and on a deep punt so it wasn’t ideal but only impacted starting field position. Most of the flags were yardage only like this one. Connor McGovern’s offensive offside negated a one yard gain.
The biggest story was Max Hairston’s defensive holding call. The flag itself was only one yard, but wiped out a two yard sack. It also gave up two free downs. It’s possible that Vrabel goes for it, already showing he planned on a being aggressive. It’s possible that Buffalo can make a stop on 4th & 4. It’s also possible it’s a field goal. Maybe there’s zero change in the outcome of the drive, but maybe this flag was worth four or seven points to the Patriots.
In a three point game. Let’s take a look now and see what we can learn from these flags.
- I really wanted to take a look at McGovern’s offside call. Offensive offsides is not at all common with only one or two a week all season. Put differently, if you’re not watching the right game, you could go weeks without seeing one. I wanted to see if McGovern moved the ball from where the official spotted it. He did not. I wanted to see if he was leaning over the ball too far. He was not. Finally, I wanted to see if any part of him was past the ball. There was not. I don’t see any reason this was called.
- On Bass’ kickoff short of the landing zone, going frame by frame it looks like the ball was juuuuuust shy of the landing zone. What’s wild to me is that (watch the video if you haven’t yet) the official that calls it is nowhere near the line itself and somehow saw this. He’s close to 30 yards away when it hits and not staring down the line. Wild!
- The Dawkins hold is mostly legit, but I’m going to invoke a rule that only I ever seem to bring up. The defender’s right arm swings almost like he’s trying a rip move. Remember that if a defender tries a rip holding isn’t supposed to be called unless his “feet are taken away from him” which is not the case here. I want to be clear here that I don’t think the defender is trying a rip move and this is a good call. However, I have the luxury of focusing on just Dawkins and replay at my leisure. The official has to call this in real time with one shot and it’d be understandable in this case if he thought there was a rip and it wasn’t called.
- The illegal hands to the face by Dawkins was clearly the right call.
- Davison Igbinosun definitely seems to impact his man’s movement and ability to make a catch and this was a good call too. It could have been worse though seeing as how Mack Hollins still made the catch.
- On the Max Hairston flag, I don’t love this one at all. Technically I think you can call this, but how many times have you seen an undershirt pull not get called because the receiver can run free uninhibited? I don’t see any restriction on the ability to make a catch which isn’t technically part of defensive holding’s definition/guidance in the rulebook but in practicality we see it play out that way.
- Finally, Sam Franklin had a heck of a face mask. 100% the right call.
