Buffalo Rumblings
We have some punching and other wackiness to discuss
The Buffalo Bills got off to a hot start against the Indianapolis Colts, let them back into the game, then took back control in what was ultimately a convincing win. Along the way, there were plenty of flags, including a couple fun things for us to discuss.
Yes, I’ll talk about Josh Allen getting punched. Ready? Here we go!
The roller coaster season for the Bills continues. They had been doing great staying under the league average, then decided to blow that concept to smithereens for a couple games. Then back under. Now back over. Still though, the Bills are currently 15th in the league when it comes to flags per game, and for a Sean McDermott-led team that’s pretty fantastic.
Overall this isn’t too bad in relation to their counts, so maybe there’s some skewing toward boo-boo flags for the Bills. Through our first two charts, the Colts look like they had a very clean day. Let’s check in on my proprietary stat to see if I still feel that way when the dust settles.
Cutting to the chase, the Colts had 6.8 Harm total, which is well under our bad-day threshold. So the answer is that “no,” my stat isn’t going to change my mind on the Colts having a clean day overall. Most of these are pretty “meh” too.
False starts are rarely fun to discuss, the delay of game was intentional to try and draw Buffalo offside, and the defensive pass interference was offset by an illegal shift on tight end Dawson Knox.
There were two illegal-formation flags on Indy. The one on offensive tackle Matt Goncalves was yards only. The one called on offensive tackle Braden Smith wiped out a five-yard gain, which happened to have earned a first down from third. For the formula fans that’s 5 yards assessed + 5 yards impacted + 2 downs negated. Or 0.5 + 0.5 + 2.0 = 3.0 Harm.
Last but not least on the penalties that were called, was the too-many-men-on-the-field call, which occurred on the same play as the offside. The Bills had the ball 3rd & 1 and Buffalo called the usual quarterback “sneak” with Josh Allen — who gained two yards. On paper, this is objectively hilarious. Technically, the Rams had 14 players on the field, including one horrifically offside. Let’s take a peek at this.
In reality it’s a little less funny, but a lot more “kudos to the Bills for having the wherewithal to notice the Colts weren’t getting off the field fast enough.” Let’s do one more GIF and have a bit of discussion.
Going in slow motion, I counted five instances of what could be a punch. The NFL rule book is pretty cut and dry on punching. You take a swing, you take a walk to the locker room. Even if...
