Buffalo Rumblings
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
