2009 NFL Referee Statistics for Week 4 (through October 3, 2009)

Our first analysis of the statistics for NFL referees in the 2009 NFL season. This is our week 4 report, meaning that we compile the statistics from week 1 through week 3, through the end of September 2009. Use this to think about the week 4 games (starting October 4).

The numbers for the first three weeks mean that some referees have only done 2 games so far. This is a very small sample size and I am not going to try to draw too many conclusions from them. But post a comment if you have some questions or ideas -- some basic numbers:

Total accepted penalties (correlation to home team win rate: -0.358)

• most: Walt Anderson (18.5)
• Ed Hochuli (17)
• Scott Green (16)
• least: Alberto Riveron (8.7)
• Mike Carey and Terry McAulay (9.7 each)

Percent penalties called against the visiting team: (correlation to home team win rate: -0.051)

• most: Peter Morelli (60%)
• Jeff Triplette (58%)
• John Parry (56%)
• least: Tony Corrente (35%)
• Don Carey (42%)
• Gene Steratore (43%)

Total points scored: (correlation to home team win rate: 0.162)

• most: Mike Carey (59)
• Alberto Riveron (53.7)
• Gene Steratore (51)
• least: Walt Anderson (28.5)
• Jerome Boger (28.7)
• Bill Leavy (30.7)

Total points scored compared to the game's expected points (using the betting over/under line). Correlation to home team rate: 0.266

• most: Mike Carey (+15.3) [tops on both lists]
• Gene Steratore (+11.8) [3rd on raw points scored, 2nd on this list]
• Alberto Riveron (+9.8) [2nd on raw points, 3rd on this list]
• least: Walt Anderson (-17) [the least ones are in the same order in raw points and this list]
  
• Jerome Boger (-10.7)
• Bill Leavy (-9)

Home team win rate:

• Mike Carey, Scott Green, Bill Leavy (100%)
• Carl Cheffers, Ed Hochuli, Jeff Triplette, Walt Anderson (0%)

And let's go to the tiebreaker -- the average points spread for home teams for these referees. Of the ones where the home team won each game, Scott Green is the best because home teams in his games were favored by only 1.2 points (5 for Mike Carey, 6 for Bill Leavy).

Of the ones where the home team lost each game, Ed Hochuli is best for visiting teams so far because in his games, home teams were favored by 4.2 points (-2.3 for Walt Anderson, -3.5 for Jeff Triplette, and -10 for Carl Cheffers).

Unusual correlation after very limited data: hmmm, some strange correlations with this very limited data. The correlation of the over-under line to the home team win rate is pretty negative, suggesting that when you expect a low-scoring game, this is very good for the home team generally. Looking game by game so far, the over-under line has an -0.237 correlation to the home team win rate and a -0.269 correlation to the amount of points that the home team scores more than the visiting team. Let's look at this again during the year...