There have been conspiracy theories that the NFL are been purposely (via reffing) trying to keep games competitive for longer.

Not saying it's true, but while there have been a lot of blowouts, there have also been a lot of closer games with seemingly less in-between games.

I believe I read they were in record pace for one score games in a season, but I did not go back and try to look that up.

But they did set a new record for a single day...

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/five-teams-kicked-game-winning-field-goals-as-time-expired-most-in-a-day-in-nfl-history 

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I know one nerd who's too excited for this topic.

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makes you think, eh?

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What really made me think, was an early/mid-season article (maybe last year?) that suggested the NFL was having the most one possession games ever. Which I can't seem to find now.

But also the Vikings set a record for most one possession games wins last year.

There is a lot of freaking one possession games record either being on pace to break, or actually breaking.

On the other hand, we have also seen a lot of just huge blowouts this year... just seems like either it's a major blowout, or it's quite close, without much in between.

I mean, it could be random, and the NFL could actually be completely equals as the NFL has tried to do for decades... but suddenly they're being a lot more successful at it?

I don't think we can prove it's the NFL unless you can prove the Refs are doing something. Though I know Sean Peyton claims he has proof that the NFL refs called a lot more penalties against the Saints than the teams that were playing the Saints, compared to other teams.


And I think there is easy proof to say the NFL told the refs to stop calling holding calls on the OL and be more relaxed about it, but that helps offenses as a whole. But if the refs wanted to manipulate it, could suddenly start calling them on the team that's winning, which proves absolutely nothing but my point is that the NFL has made opportunities for them to do this.

Also with the NFL overall plan to seemingly make the NFL rules my generic, and less specific, meaning they can apply them differently from one year or even one week than the next, which I believe was for PR, to say, oh no the Refs didn't screw up, that's just how we interpreted the rules (this time).

But the opportunity is now there, and the results are seemingly now there.... so now would be the time to actually study it and see if it's happening, and someone might get a pretty good gambling lawsuit out of it.

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I wonder how much of an aberration this actually is. Historically, the average margin of victory in an NFL game is well under 7 points.

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Says who? Or what's the stats?

Front Office Sports writer Doug Greenberg, says otherwise, and here is his stats

Though it also needs be noted for the 156 one possession games being the most ever, they also recently went to 17 games seasons, so if that's close then maybe not a big deal, but we don't know if it's close or far.

The lowest average margin of victory since 1932 would be a big deal.

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Using Profootball Reference chart, I used Margin of Victory (MoV, all the way in the right following the link)

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/NFL/scoring.htm 

I created a graph from 1980 onward for the NFL and the Margin of Victory bounces around but usually always stayed between 11.1 and 12.7 through the years.

Years the Margin of Victory were at or below 11.1 (under will be bolded)
1980
1982
1994
1995
2001
2015
2016
2018
2020
2022

Years the Margin of Victory were at or over 12.7 (over will be bolded)
1985
1992
2009
2014


So the chart appears to be pretty random between 11.1 and 12.7.... and in 2007 to 2014 it mostly stayed above 12.0, but in the 9 years since 2014, it's dropped down, and 5 of the 9 years were at or below 11.1. Including 3 of 9 years below 11.1 with two years being at 10.5 or below.

In 2021 it did bounce back up to 12.1 and 2017 and 2019 were 11.7 but the rest of the years since 2014 have all suddenly below 11.5.

2023 is actually a higher recent year, currently listed as 11.4, but this year has seemed to gave a lot of blowouts missed with a lot of close games and not many in the middle.

Mike Pereira 2004-2009
Carl Johnson 2010-2012
Dean Blandino 2013-2016
Alberto Riveron 2017-2021
Walt Anderson and Perry Fewell 2022-Currently


So the last decade has certainly been closer games than prior. Not suggesting the NFL purposely has caused this, as it could of been rule changes or something. But I don't remember any big changes around that time. 2010 was the CBA rule changes, when a lot of rule changes happened. 2018 is when the catch rule changed.

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I am wondering what the average would be if you took out the highest and lowest point differences. I am guessing the Dolphins 50 point blow out might distort the stats a little.

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Not half as much distortion as you are trying to distort the facts of the real numbers that are involved, just because the facts didn't fit your opinion.

But hypothetically if you took a 50 point game and a 0 point game (a tie) out, that would would be 2 games at 25 point average, but there would be another 270 games averages to add. So that would only change things (I believe) by (25/270 or) 0.0925%

Which if you round that up, it would only change 0.1% and the general average would still be between 11% and 12.6%, and not well under 7.

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What baffles me is that referees are not full time employees of the NFL.

They need to hire these guys full time, up their pay, and make them work on shit year round. Maybe at that point they will care a little more and do a better job.

I know this doesn’t have anything to do with whether it’s rigged or not, but it’s a ref topic so I’m throwing it out there.

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