Buffalo Rumblings
I’m going to preface what I’m sure will be many, many words about penalties that I have no love lost for Shawn Hochuli. In fact, I’ve invoked the name “Hugo Cruz” when discussing Hochuli in the past. I want fans to remember that name because there’s often chatter about how bad officiating doesn’t have consequences. It’s rarely as obvious as Cruz who was unceremoniously fired shortly after a notorious game, but refs are reviewed and corrections made.
Back on topic, yes. I’ve called for Hochuli to be unceremoniously fired. So I don’t say this lightly. It was not a perfect game by any means, but Hochuli’s crew wasn’t out to get the Bills. Also as a procedural note, due to the volume of flags things might be a little different this week.
The league rates for both these measures went up a notch this week. Probably from just this game. Woof. Neither team had a particularly good game this week, and right now my declaration that things were pretty even doesn’t look too well supported. As a bit of foreshadowing, when I mean “even” I usually mean “about.” Like in this metric, it’s not that it’s equal but within striking distance.
Here we have an intriguing bit of the puzzle where New England catches right up with the Bills. Despite lower flag volumes, the yardage is very close to even. The Bills negated a few more yards than the Patriots did via penalty to pull back ahead but these columns are pretty balanced.
With the volume this week for both teams there wasn’t much time for clips and I won’t be running through the formula for every flag because I want you to not still be reading by the time Monday Night Football rolls around and hopefully the Bills get back on track. What I’ll focus on is the idea of Harm and how penalties impact things and for this week I want to talk results.
On the Patriots side of the ledger, with the Bills down by 10 and the offense struggling all day, the Patriots were flagged for roughing the passer and unnecessary roughness on back-to-back plays. A 30-yard swing based on the usual measures. If we add in the fact that the plays were an incomplete pass and a loss of four on a run, two negative plays turned into two big gains. Buffalo scored a touchdown on a needed drive that could have easily ended before it began.
Soon after, on 2nd & 6 an inc0mplete pass was bailed out by the Jack Gibbens defensive pass interference call. Giving up 19 yards and a free down, this flag also likely was a huge boon to Buffalo. Had the play stood, they’d have been faced with 3rd & 6. Certainly not a death knell, but with the way the game had been going it also was no...
