The GVG Report

In the beginning of the season I noticed several games that were lopsided in terms of the number of penalties given in a game. It was such a large discrepancy that I wanted to keep track of it and see if it was the same crew or not.

The reason why I am bringing this up is the Steelers-Chargers game 11/16/08. The Steelers had 13 penalties for 115 yards and the Chargers had 2 penalties for 5 yards. The game finished in the weirdest final score in the history of the NFL 11-10. Only because the refs didn't allow a fumble recovery for touchdown due to an illegal forward pass that never happened. (See NOTE 1 at end)

No matter what the Steelers offense did, they could never maintain a drive. They led in yards ( 410 to 213), rushing (124 to 66), passing (286 to 147) and time of possession (36:31 to 23:29).

Through my studies, based upon the final game stats, the score should have been 30-10 but it was not. Did the penalties influence the game that much?  Probably.

The penalties called were sometimes clear and other times very questionable. Now I believe on any given play, If he wanted to, a ref could call a penalty because there is so much going on. My question is why did they want to on so many plays and in such an unbalanced manner?

This one aspect of the game had nothing to do with the players ability and everything to do with the ref's over scrutiny and one-sidedness.

The Steelers to date have 65 penalties with the league average being 58 (20% of their season penalties came in this game). The Chargers average 4.9 penalties per game and had 2. The Steelers average 6.5 penalties a game and had 13.

I have been monitoring ref crews all year for penalty calling and compiled will be compiling the results tomorrow. Fortunately the crews stay together.

Mike Tomlin showed tremendous restraint and is a total class act... he refused to comment after the game. The penalty yards ratio was 23 to 1.

NOTE 1: Steelers were favored by 4.5 and would have won by 7 if the last TD was allowed.