I think it flew under the radar this week, so this is likely the first time you’re hearing that the Buffalo Bills beat the Baltimore Ravens on a last-second field goal booted off the foot of the oldest player to take the field in team history who was on the team for a grand total of three days at that point. That seems like a fun game, right?
Just wait until you hear about the penalties!
Standard and Advanced Metrics
Penalty Counts
I promise there’s a really fun thing to discuss this week, but it’s not quite here yet. This section is pretty straightforward
and most of these words are a glorified page break between this chart and the next chart. For any newcomers, “true” count adds in declined and/or offset penalties as they arise as it helps us analyze penalty tendencies. Anyway, on this chart you can see that Buffalo had a pretty
For the league-based stats, these are both considerably higher than how last year ended (6.4 count and 7.56 true count). As I’ve noted every year, the season always starts high and trickles down. That said, 2024 Week 1 started at 6.75 and 8.06 respectively. So yes, keep an eye on this year as we’re off to a higher start than last season.
Penalty Yards
Here’s our first interesting thing, but in the hopes of an enticing cliffhanger I won’t explain the why just yet. If you check any stat site anywhere you’ll see the Ravens with 51 penalty yards assessed, five off of what I did. I have a good reason for it, so more on that in a moment. For here, the narrative remains mostly the same. Baltimore was basically average, with Buffalo a bit ahead of the curve.
For new readers, the league does actually have top secret stats similar to my true yards, but they calculate less thoroughly than I like, which means I don’t have league data. True yards add in yards impacted by penalty. For example, if a holding call wipes out a big run, we hold the lost yardage against the offender as well. As you can see, Baltimore had no additional yards added in, whereas Buffalo catches right up with a few key flags adding in some chunks.
Penalty Harm
Buffalo Bills
I’ve debated for years on which team to start with first since sports fans are a superstitious lot. Should I do home/visitor style? Do I give the courtesy of going first to the opponent? Bills first because we’re a Bills blog? Screw it! From now on no more agonizing on the decision. The less interesting discussion goes first to convince you to stick around to the end (and take advantage of recency bias in learners to make you more likely to leave with positive associations with my work).
The Bills are the more boring team here. We’ll run through the formula a couple times but that’s about it. With only five flags, we may as well discuss them all.
The first flag was defensive holding called on cornerback Dorian Strong. Strong’s flag also wiped out a sack of one yard, and gave up a free first down (play occurred on second down). That means five assessed yards plus one impacted yard plus one down. For the new readers, the formula tracks that as 0.5 + 0.1 + 1.0 = 1.6 Harm.
Right tackle Spencer Brown was called for offensive holding (typically the most impactful penalty type). That flag was assessed for eights yards or half the distance to the goal. It also wiped out a 10-yard Josh Allen scramble on second down that would have gained a first. That’s 0.8 + 1.0 + 1.0 = 2.8 Harm. It was also pretty clearly a flag.
Linebacker Dorian Williams was called for offensive holding because that’s the variant that’s called on special teams. That’s 10 yards assessed, plus it wiped out nine yards of the kick return (spot of the foul) for 1.9 Harm. It was even more obvious.
Left tackle Dion Dawkins’ holding wiped out no additional yards so it was assessed only for 1.0 Harm. It was also pretty clear.
Last but not least is a false start on Dawkins. Wait, no. It is the least. False starts are boring. This was deserved but we have nothing to discuss on it really. Buffalo had 7.8 Harm total. Our “bad day” line is 10.0 Harm, so the Bills had a pretty easy day when it comes to flags.
Baltimore Ravens
The Ravens had 9.6 Harm total, just under the bad-day marker or pretty much average, which is what the other stats said. I don’t have clips of the Ravens’ flags because they’re wicked, wicked players and deserve all that and more. More importantly, we have two more interesting things to discuss that the clips aren’t necessary for.
I said up above that my count has a discrepancy with every other site, with mine being higher by five yards. That’s courtesy of kicker Tyler Loop who failed to get a kick into the landing zone. That brings the opposing team out to the 40. The official stats don’t count that as any yards. I decided to count it as five as it’s opposed to the touchback spot. I could have put it in the impacted yards column so my base stats would match, but I just don’t like the idea of a flag that has zero relevance in the stat world by default. So that’s mildly interesting I hope.
Here’s what you’ve been waiting for and maybe you spotted the bar on the chart that looks broken. The too-many-men-on-the-field flag is showing a negative harm rating and that’s NOT an error in the formula. The Ravens hit the penalty jackpot in the insanely elusive “good” penalty. Let’s break down the formula first and then discuss a bit more.
This came on an extra point try so the spot of the ball was moved from the two-yard line to the one-yard line for 0.1 Harm. Buffalo elected to go for two with this shift. That means on the play the penalty occurred the point was negated, which favored Baltimore. Points are a direct translation to Harm so that’s -1.0 Harm.
Now on the play itself, the rating represents potential. It gives the Ravens a chance to stop the point since the Bills get a retry. For Harm, I still like that as a positive outcome as some chance is better than leaving the point on the board, though it does also risk allowing that second point. In the actual case, Buffalo didn’t convert on the two-point try, which means this was a fantastic penalty for the Ravens. Hopefully that was worth the hype!
For us penalty nerds this is like finding a four-leaf clover. You know they exist, but they’re so rare it’s hard to remember the last time you saw one. And hunting for one isn’t likely to yield anything either. You just need to be lucky enough to stumble on one.
