Super Bowl Penalty and Referee Commentary

I'll try to compile some of the media commentary on referee Terry McAulay and Super Bowl XLIII between the Cardinals and the Steelers.

First, some of my own thoughts:

Looking at the quality of the calls made (not the statistics):

• On the James Harrison interception return for a TD, should the referees have called an illegal block in the back? (Another question is why the players on the sideline stand so close to the field when the action is coming down the sideline? One of the Cardinals players #21 Antrel Rolle was standing close to the sideline and got in the way of Larry Fitzgerald, who was trying to chase down James Harrison but had to slow down when he ran into Antrel Rolle and got there barely too late to stop the TD.)
• On the Santonio Holmes TD near the end of the game, Santonio Holmes used the ball as a prop while celebrating the TD. I hate the rule that there's a 15-yard penalty for using the ball as a prop, but the rule is there and shouldn't the referees have called it? If they did, it would have been easier for the Cardinals to try to score in the final seconds.

Other commentary:

• Amazing game overshadows all the distractions by Jason Whitlock: the game overcame the officiating, which was "the worst-officiated, sloppiest Super Bowl in league history." Some penalties were obvious while "Some of the other penalties were highly suspicious and lacked common sense. Pittsburgh went up 20-7 in the third quarter thanks to a 16-play, 79-yard, field-goal drive that was significantly helped by a face-mask penalty, a roughing-the-passer flag and an unnecessary-roughness call."
• Kurt Warner Was The Real Super Bowl MVP; James Harrison Should Have Been Ejected by Ryan Michael: "My issue with Harrison is what he did during the 4th quarter. Punching another player when he was down then pushing him to the ground. The referees called a deserved penalty but where was his ejection? Looking at that replay you certainly couldn't find any justification for his actions, could you? Had this incident happened with a less popular player in a less popular game, that would be all we would see of him. But because it's the Defensive Player of The Year in the biggest game of the year he gets a free pass? Either the referees were stupid or afraid to be part of the controversy that could have arisen by telling James Harrison to beat it."
  

Super Bowl XLIII: Steelers 27-23 Cardinals

Some initial thoughts on the penalty statistics (without looking yet at the quality of the calls):

The final accepted penalties were 11-106 against the Cardinals and 7-56 against the Steelers (including the meaningless personal foul against the Steelers at the end of the game that tended to even off the figures more than it really was while the game was competitive).

Terry McAulay's games in the regular season were especially good for teams that had less penalties and penalty yards called against them. That held up in the Super Bowl. This goes against the grain of what the trend was for the Cardinals and the Steelers in the regular season because those teams did better when they committed more of the penalties, strangely enough.

The Cardinals did better in lower-scoring games than higher-scoring games. This game was in the mid-range, though, so can't say much there.

The Cardinals did better when there were lots of total penalties called, going 5-1 when there were 14 or more total penalties called. This went against the trend because there were 18 total penalties called.

Let's compare the penalty totals to all the regular season games:

• The Cardinals had 61.1% of the penalties. Home teams won 51.7% of games with that high of a percent or more of the penalties. Visiting teams won 38.1% of those games.
• The Cardinals had 65.4% of the penalty yards accepted. Home teams won 51.5% of games with that high or more of the penalty yards. Visiting teams won 40.8% of those games.

Looking at the quality of the calls made (not the statistics):

• On the James Harrison interception return for a TD, should the referees have called an illegal block in the back? (Another question is why the players on the sideline stand so close to the field when the action is coming down the sideline? One of the Cardinals players #21 Antrel Rolle was standing close to the sideline and got in the way of Larry Fitzgerald, who was trying to chase down James Harrison but had to slow down when he ran into Antrel Rolle and got there barely too late to stop the TD.)
• On the Santonio Holmes TD near the end of the game, Santonio Holmes used the ball as a prop while celebrating the TD. I hate the rule that there's a 15-yard penalty for using the ball as a prop, but the rule is there and shouldn't the referees have called it? If they did, it would have been easier for the Cardinals to try to score in the final seconds.
  

Super Bowl XLIII: Cardinals and Steelers, Actual Game Penalty Statistics

The scoreboard early in the fourth quarter shows the Steelers are heavy favorites to win the game. They have a 20-7 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Let's take a quick look at the penalty statistics. The Cardinals have 9-91 (9 penalties for 91 yards) and the Steelers have 2-15 (2 penalties for 15 yards). This is just as of the early part of the fourth quarter, the game is still going on.

You might think the huge disparity in calls against the Cardinals would work against them in the regular season. Not true -- the Cardinals did especially well in games where there were more penalties called against the Cardinals as opposed to the other team. For example, winning 26-20 at Seattle in week 11 when the Cardinals had 8 penalties and the Seahawks had 1 penalty. The correlation statistics for the Cardinals are -0.428 correlation of percent penalties to scoring margin and -0.494 correlation of percent penalties to won/loss result.

Maybe the answer is that the regular season has too small of a sample size.

This only looks at the raw statistics, not a specific criticism of the quality of the calls being made. Post your comments about specific calls!

The Steelers had a slightly negative correlation in the regular season also, -0.201 correlation of % penalties to scoring margin and -0.113 % penalties to won/loss result.

For all teams, the correlation was minimal: 0.130 to scoring margin and 0.074 to won/loss result.

Super Bowl XLIII (Cardinals-Steelers): Actual Penalties and Actual Total Points

Let's take a look at how well the Cardinals and Steelers did in the regular season when compared with certain penalty statistics in their games.

The Cardinals did better when they committed more penalties. This seems strange, but the numbers show a correlation. For all teams, there is a -0.033 correlation between the scoring margin to the number of penalties committed, but the Cardinals had a 0.359 correlation. For all teams, there is a -0.063 correlation between the won/loss result and penalties committed, but the Cardinals had a 0.426 correlation. Strange. The Steelers had a -0.061 correlation to scoring margin and 0.137 correlation to won/loss result. This could be how the Cardinals did better in games where the referees called more penalties.

The Cardinals did better in games where there were more penalties. The Cardinals show a correlation of doing better in games where the referees called more penalties (0.117 to scoring margin and 0.248 to won/loss result) while the Steelers had mixed results (-0.151 to scoring margin and 0.057 to won/loss result). The league-wide total was no correlation because in each game, half the teams win and half lose.

The Cardinals did better in lower-scoring games. The Cardinals did better when the actual total points in the game was lower: -0.470 correlation of actual total points to scoring margin and -0.450 correlation of actual total points to won/loss result. The Steelers had mixed results (0.228 to margin and -0.032 to won/loss result). Maybe the key is whether the Cardinals defense can keep the game low-scoring? (The Cardinals went 7-0 when their opponents scored 21 or less, 1-2 when their opponents scored 24 points, and 0-6 when their opponents scored 27 or more.)

If the regular season trends hold up, Cardinals fans should be happy if there are many penalties, if there are penalties against the Cardinals, and the game is low-scoring. Steelers fans should not care much because those details had little correlation with the Steelers during the regular season.

Super Bowl XLIII (Arizona Cardinals-Pittsburgh Steelers 2009): Regular Season Performance With Referees

What if we looked for trends by the Cardinals and the Steelers during the regular season as it matched up with the referees in each of their games?

I've compared the results of each of the games (both the won-loss result and the margin of victory result) and compared them with the qualities of the referee for that game -- is it a referee who called many penalties during the regular season? Is it a referee who had high-scoring games?

Let's take a look at some trends and how they match up with Terry McAulay, the head referee for Super Bowl XLIII. (Terry has a mixed crew for the Super Bowl, so it does not match up exactly with his regular season statistics, but we'll use it anyway.)

Total accepted penalties and total penalty yards: Pittsburgh did well in games where the referee had more total penalties per game (0.351 correlation to scoring margin and 0.150 correlation to the result). It made little difference to the Cardinals. There is a similar result for total penalty yards (Pittsburgh had 0.353 correlation to scoring margin and 0.167 correlation to the result). Terry McAulay was between 7th and 9th in these categories out of 17 referees so this does not seem to be much of a factor in Terry's games. No advantage.

Both teams did better with referees with higher yards per penalty. No advantage.

Total points scored: The high-powered offense of the Cardinals did better in games where the referee had lower-scoring total points per game. The high-powered defense of the Steelers did better when the referee was one who generally had high-scoring games throughout the season. This seems a bit strange, but that's what the statistics say. The Cardinals had a negative correlation to the total points in the referees' games (-0.386 to margin; -0.500 to result) while the Steelers had a positive correlation (0.177 to margin; 0.154 to result). Terry McAulay had lower-scoring total points per game, ranking 12th out of 17 crews. This factor tends to favor the Cardinals and work against the Steelers. Advantage: Cardinals.

Home team win-rate: the Cardinals did well in games with referees with a low win-rate for home teams (-0.500 to margin; -0.648 to result). The Steelers did well in games with referees with a high win-rate for home teams (0.131 to margin; 0.281 to result). Terry McAulay was tied for the 10th-11th best win-rate for the home team. Out of 17 crews, he was a little lower than average. This factor slightly favors the Cardinals and slightly works against the Steelers. Advantage: Cardinals

Of course, let's not go overboard -- the game will probably be decided by the players, not unexplained correlations to the tendencies during the regular season of the referees. Right?