Did the League go Overboard Last Season?

[NorthCoast]

NFL refs called offensive holding at the lowest rate in over a decade. Did the league give in to covid and a lack of TC and preseason? I get they are trying to protect these mega-million dollar QBs but c'mon, it's football!

I hope this isn't the new norm because it's a huge hit against teams like the Steelers with their pass rushing.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2mgzdDt][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2mgzdDt]Capture[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/191750946@N04/]R W[/url], on Flickr

[BURGH86STEEL]

The NFL is an offensive driven league. They want to see more offensive production and points scored because of the bottom line. Casual fans love scoring. Fantasy football is good for the league's bottom line. Don't be surprised if the trend continues.

[feltdizz]

Defense was definitely at a disadvantage early last season. Some people seem to believe it wasn’t an issue but QB’s had all day to through and it put DB’s in a tough spot the first 4 to 5 weeks of the season.

[Eich]

Since protecting the QB's and promoting scoring seems to be the primary goal, I'm surprised they just don't make offensive holding legal and put boxing gloves on the linemen to keep them from grabbing.

[Steel Maniac]

Defense was definitely at a disadvantage early last season. Some people seem to believe it wasn’t an issue but QB’s had all day to through and it put DB’s in a tough spot the first 4 to 5 weeks of the season.

Definitely..

[hawaiiansteel]

Definitely..

Boom........

[Ghost]

I don’t mind not calmly every little temporary hold but we’ve all seen Watt get full on tackled as if he was a RB and the flag stays in the pocket. Come on.

Add to that the absolute ridiculousness that is now roughing the passer. Breath on them heavily and it’s 15.

[NorthCoast]

The NFL is an offensive driven league. They want to see more offensive production and points scored because of the bottom line. Casual fans love scoring. Fantasy football is good for the league's bottom line. Don't be surprised if the trend continues.

Gambling, I think, will ultimately be the undoing of a watchable NFL league ( at least for us that watched real football).

[BURGH86STEEL]

Gambling, I think, will ultimately be the undoing of a watchable NFL league ( at least for us that watched real football).

I can enjoy a defensive battle or offensive battle. I don't gamble or play fantasy football so I don't have an interest outside of the game itself.
Gambling is certainly a factor in it's potential to influence point spreads. Fans continued to watch and support the NFL, baseball, and the NBA even after the scandals. People love entertainment and sports. People pay for the WWF or whatever it's called now even though they know it's a soap opera.

I don't think that gambling a lone will be the undoing of a watchable NFL. It will probably be a combination of factors that lead to the downfall of the NFL. Ultimately I think that greed could lead to the league's downfall. How long will fans be able or unwilling to pay for the high costs associated with the product?

Expanding games and teams might diminish the over all quality of the product. Will fans adjust?

The pool of talent could expand on an international level as the league's influence grows, more games go international, and travel will probably become more efficient in the future. Other countries might adopt and love American Football. Teams won't be limited to players in the US. Probably won't happen in our lifetimes but you never know.

[Northern_Blitz]

NFL refs called offensive holding at the lowest rate in over a decade. Did the league give in to covid and a lack of TC and preseason? I get they are trying to protect these mega-million dollar QBs but c'mon, it's football!

I hope this isn't the new norm because it's a huge hit against teams like the Steelers with their pass rushing.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2mgzdDt][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2mgzdDt]Capture[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/191750946@N04/]R W[/url], on Flickr

At first I read this as %age of holding calls per play.

And I thought: That's insane. That's almost 5 holding calls per game per team (so 10 per game) that they're missing.

And then I thought: I know they throw a lot of flags, but I don't think 1/4 of the plays are holding calls.

Then I actually read the axes on the graphs.

So it's 7 holding calls missed per team across the season.

Or 0.44 calls per game per team.

Or about 1 play per game (total) if I'm doing the math right this time.

I thought it would be higher for all that has been made about the drop in holding calls last year. Maybe that's an indication that I'm doing the math wrong?

So I guess I'm going to say probably not all that overboard...although I guess it depends on the result of the play they didn't call.

And it would be interesting to see if teams with more sacks (i.e. better pass rush) were disproportionally hurt by this or not.

[NorthCoast]

At first I read this as %age of holding calls per play.

And I thought: That's insane. That's almost 5 holding calls per game per team (so 10 per game) that they're missing.

And then I thought: I know they throw a lot of flags, but I don't think 1/4 of the plays are holding calls.

Then I actually read the axes on the graphs.

So it's 7 holding calls missed per team across the season.

Or 0.44 calls per game per team.

Or about 1 play per game (total) if I'm doing the math right this time.

I thought it would be higher for all that has been made about the drop in holding calls last year. Maybe that's an indication that I'm doing the math wrong?

So I guess I'm going to say probably not all that overboard...although I guess it depends on the result of the play they didn't call.

And it would be interesting to see if teams with more sacks (i.e. better pass rush) were disproportionally hurt by this or not.

I see what you are doing there but one thing you might need to consider is that penalties may not be evenly distributed. Think about a team like the Steelers that leads the league in sacks for the last few years. It's reasonable to assume they get held far more often than a team like CIN that couldn't get a sack if you spotted them s-a-c- . (now having said that, maybe the penalties shouldn't be evenly distributed).

And to Ghost's point, we've all witnessed Watt and even Dupree in full takedowns during the season. The problem isn't totally about fewer calls as much as unevenness of the calls.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2mgGBew][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2mgGBew]Capture[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/191750946@N04/]R W[/url], on Flickr

"There were a couple of holding calls out there, it's every week," Watt said. "The ref literally admitted to me that guy held me on one play, and he didn't throw the flag. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that after a play. I look over at the ref and he says, 'Yes, I saw him hold you, but I didn't throw the flag.'

[Mr.wizard]

Downfall of the NFL?? The NFL is not hurting for people to watch. Gambling and fantasy football is what is going to bring more people to watch football. There are far more people who are casual fans who will sit down and watch if they have a stake in the game, then the " real football" guy who likes to break down sub packages and blocking schemes.

[Northern_Blitz]

I see what you are doing there but one thing you might need to consider is that penalties may not be evenly distributed. Think about a team like the Steelers that leads the league in sacks for the last few years. It's reasonable to assume they get held far more often than a team like CIN that couldn't get a sack if you spotted them s-a-c- . (now having said that, maybe the penalties shouldn't be evenly distributed).

And to Ghost's point, we've all witnessed Watt and even Dupree in full takedowns during the season. The problem isn't totally about fewer calls as much as unevenness of the calls.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2mgGBew][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2mgGBew]Capture[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/191750946@N04/]R W[/url], on Flickr

I agree that some teams might be disproportionally affected and that it's possible that we are one of those teams. I tried to say that at the end of my previous post.

But my guess is that it's fairly evenly distributed across all teams across the entire season. Or at least that would be my assumption without evidence.

But ultimately we don't know the answer from the average data.

After seeing the data you posted, what I think is happening is that we blamed all the missed holding penalties we always see on the reduction in holding penalties in general. And again from all the press it got last season (like the video and tweet you've posted), I expected the difference in average holding calls to be wider than it was.

So before we'd say: "That's BS! See how the OT has his arms wrapped around Debo's neck? That's a F-ing hold. Throw the F-ing flag! It's such BS that they never call holding on Harrison. He'd have twice as many sacks if they enforced the rules as they're written"

Las season we'd say: "That's BS! See how the OT has his arms wrapped around Watt's neck? That's a F-ing hold. Throw the F-ing flag! It's such BS that they never call holding this season. We'd have twice as many sacks if they enforced the rules against as they're written"

In other words, we're always sensitive to the holding that they should call against our opponents. But this year it was highlighted even more because it was widely reported that holding was down (by a little less than one holding call per game on average).

It's not surprising that players would complain about this too. It's taking money out of their pockets.

If we're looking to post holes in my post, I actually think that my biggest assumption here is that holding occurred at the same rate as last year. It's possible that the lack of training camp (OLs not gelling together) and the reduction in calls (more incentive to try to hold if it's not getting called) led to more holding than normal. If that was the case, then they would have "missed" more calls than the difference in called penalties implies.

I think what we actually need to know the answer is something that compares holding calls missed in previous years vs. last year. But that would be way too time consuming to do. And it would be very subjective. So we won't get that data.

[NorthCoast]

I agree that some teams might be disproportionally affected and that it's possible that we are one of those teams. I tried to say that at the end of my previous post.

But my guess is that it's fairly evenly distributed across all teams across the entire season. Or at least that would be my assumption without evidence.

But ultimately we don't know the answer from the average data.

After seeing the data you posted, what I think is happening is that we blamed all the missed holding penalties we always see on the reduction in holding penalties in general. And again from all the press it got last season (like the video and tweet you've posted), I expected the difference in average holding calls to be wider than it was.

So before we'd say: "That's BS! See how the OT has his arms wrapped around Debo's neck? That's a F-ing hold. Throw the F-ing flag! It's such BS that they never call holding on Harrison. He'd have twice as many sacks if they enforced the rules as they're written"

Las season we'd say: "That's BS! See how the OT has his arms wrapped around Watt's neck? That's a F-ing hold. Throw the F-ing flag! It's such BS that they never call holding this season. We'd have twice as many sacks if they enforced the rules against as they're written"

In other words, we're always sensitive to the holding that they should call against our opponents. But this year it was highlighted even more because it was widely reported that holding was down (by a little less than one holding call per game on average).

It's not surprising that players would complain about this too. It's taking money out of their pockets.

If we're looking to post holes in my post, I actually think that my biggest assumption here is that holding occurred at the same rate as last year. It's possible that the lack of training camp (OLs not gelling together) and the reduction in calls (more incentive to try to hold if it's not getting called) led to more holding than normal. If that was the case, then they would have "missed" more calls than the difference in called penalties implies.

I think what we actually need to know the answer is something that compares holding calls missed in previous years vs. last year. But that would be way too time consuming to do. And it would be very subjective. So we won't get that data.

We've heard it said "they can call holding on every play". I think they just chose not to call it last season.

[Northern_Blitz]

We've heard it said "they can call holding on every play". I think they just chose not to call it last season.

I guess I'm arguing that (1) they choose not to call it every season; (2) they chose to call it a little less last season; and (3) because we know (2), we assume that it had more impact than it did because all the other times we saw them miss the call we attributed it to the decision to call it a little bit less.

Again, this assumes that holding occurred at the same rate as normal and that the extra non-calls were distributed fairly evenly. Maybe neither of these things are true.