NFL home teams are winning at an unprecedented rate, and it’s 100% due to the replacement officials home bias. So how should you, as a bettor, account for this? First, let’s examine exactly what they are and are not doing differently:
So far this season, there have been 231 penalties accepted on road teams and only 188 accepted on home teams. This is a delta of 43 penalties, and means road teams have to deal with 23% more penalties. What is the average delta?
Well the last 3 seasons (2011-2009) the averages are 194 penalties accepted on home teams and 195 penalties accepted on road teams. In other words, it’s usually about even each season. (Expanding from 2000-2011 there are just under 7% more penalties enforced on road teams vs. home teams). Already in 2012, we’ve had 43 more called on road teams. If calls at this rate continues, we will have 344 MORE penalties accepted on road teams than home teams this season!
In terms of yardage, we’ve had almost 2,000 penalty yards called road teams. This number is much higher than the season average called on road teams of 1,626 yds the last 3 years.
The penalty increase is mainly confined to 3 key calls:
Defensive Pass Interference: There have been 40 accepted DPI penalties thru 2 weeks of 2012. The last 3 years, the average per week is just 12. Thus, we are seeing an increase of 8 more calls per week.
Offensive Holding: There have been 72 accepted OH penalties so far this season compared to a 3 yr average of just 27 penalties. This is an increase of over 9 OH calls per week.
Personal Fouls: There are usually 3 personal fouls called per week, but so far this season we have seen 15 flags thrown for personal fouls. This is an increase of almost 5 per week.
There are a few key areas where there are fewer flags:
Offensive Pass Interference: There have been just 6 flags per week called, vs an expected 9 thrown based on the last 3 years.
Illegal Contact: There have been just 7 flags per week so far in 2012 as compared to over 9 expected the last 3 years.
Unnecessary Roughness: Officials are also allowing more roughness to persist – only 19 flags have been thrown so far, vs an expected 22 thrown based on the last 3 seasons.
Other – Because refs aren’t as familiar w/ the rulebook, they are not calling the other types of penalties that the typical referees call. Only 91 flags for offenses “other” than traditional. In 2 weeks of action, based on the last 3 years, we should have seen roughly 102 flags thrown.
So what does this mean for bettors?
Home teams have a tremendous edge. It’s not just in what IS called, but what is not called. For example, in last night’s Monday Night Football game, there was fumble by the Denver Broncos driving into Falcons territory. A huge pile of players jumped on the ball, and it was impossible for the officials to determine who had the ball. So they began to unpile the players. Protocol is the team who emerges with the ball is the team who gets possession. However, while bodies still covered the ball, an official declared “red ball”, signalling for the home team, Atlanta Falcons. They continued unpiling bodies, only to find the Broncos actually were the team with the ball at the bottom of the pile. Inexplicably, the referee announced “the ball was recovered by Atlanta”.
So between:
- penalties CALLED against the road team (which are tracked),
- penalties incorrectly NOT CALLED on the home team (not tracked), and
- other blown calls in favor of the home team, such as ball possession, ball spots, clock issues, etc,
the advantage home teams (and their rowdy crowds) have had on the officials has been remarkable, and clearly measurable.
It’s translated into a record number of HOME WINS thru 2 weeks:
The NFL average from 2002 thru 2011 the first 2 weeks is that home teams, favored by -2.5 ppg on average, win 18 games and lose 14 games (56%), winning on avg by less than a FG per game. ATS, these teams are a dead even 153-156-10 (50%) over these 10 seasons.
So far, home teams have been favored by -2.5 ppg on average and are 23-9 (72%), winning by 6 ppg. In addition, home teams are 19-12 ATS, covering over 61% of the time.
From week 1 to week 2, the difference increased. Perhaps it was increasing crowd influenced pressure from the home team’s crowd, but home teams in week 2 went an unprecedented 14-2 SU, winning by 9 ppg, and went 11-4-1 ATS. Never in the last 25 years (that’s all I checked, it could be longer) have 14 of 16 (88%) of home teams won in week 2.
The NFL average home field advantage has long been considered ~ 3 ppg. It actually has become less important than it used to be historically. From 1989 thru 1999, home teams won 59% of the time. But from 2000 thru 2011, home teams won 57% of the time.
But with these replacement referees, and home teams winning 72% of the time, compared to a week 1 and 2 average of just abut 56% of the time, home field advantage must be increased over 3 points.
Never has it been more accurate than now that the road teams must beat not the other team, but the referees as well.