Replacement Referees and Home Field Advantage: It’s Been Almost Eight Points a Game Through Two Week

[denverYooper]

I think the Packers should play all their games at home, except when they play the Giants.

Or the 49ers. Because everyone knows that a finesse team like the Packers will get beat up by those rugged, physical teams in Lambeau.

[denverYooper]

It doesn't seem to be helping us.

Nope. Interestingly enough, with all of the talk about the record scoring going on this year so far the 2 original high flyers (GB and NE) have been fairly quiet.

[LegandofthePack15]

True, but nothing really is.

Rocket surgery is just a fancy term for alien anatomy, the scientific study of the morphology of the alien body.

[denverYooper]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/nfls-replacement-officials-adding-new-wrinkles-to-sports-bets-changing-vegas-casino-lines/2012/09/20/4eef6542-02f7-11e2-9132-f2750cd65f97_story.html

Casinos haven’t fully changed lines yet because there have been only two weeks of games and referees might adjust how they call games based on weekly feedback from the league. But oddsmaker Mike Colbert of Cantor Gaming says home teams will deserve an extra half-point in their favor if games are called all year the way they were officiated in Week 2.

Heh. As though a gambling official is going to reveal their scoring model. "Oh yeah, yeah, about 1/2 point per game if everything stays the same". I'd imagine they have already worked out some kind of decay rate to add to those models.

NFL teams generally get a 3-point edge in sports books just for playing at home. An extra half-point added to that would be the equivalent of a team having a superstar receiver or running back on the field or an opponent missing its star because of injury, gambling expert RJ Bell of Pregame.com said.

This brings me back to the original reason that I posted the "8 ppg" article: it was linked by AdvancedNflStats, who I find to have pretty decent models. I'm surprised that they didn't work out how to run their EPA (Expected Points Added) analysis with the penalty information and compare it with previous years' data to see if the penalties seem to be adding any points. It's funny that they posted a link to a rather sloppy analysis instead of working up their model and providing something much more substantial.

[denverYooper]

Rocket surgery is just a fancy term for alien anatomy, the scientific study of the morphology of the alien body.

I thought it was a book about user interface design.

[mraynrand]

Damn it, Smithers! This isn't rocket science, it's brain surgery!

[denverYooper]

I'm sure they'll get better throughout the season because they'll be putting in the work, and I wonder how long it will be before people don't complain about them any more than regular officials.

At some point the leverage that the regular refs (thought they) had is going to be totally gone.

http://thesportseconomist.com/2012/09/21/the-replacements/

1. The locked-out refs hold a very weak bargaining position. Unlike the players, the refs possess no rare set of skills or endowments such as a 280 pound frame able to run a 4.7 40 yard dash. Yes, there are some specific skills, both individually and as a coordinated unit, that officials need in order to effectively manage an NFL game, and these skills take some time and training to attain to the level of the old refs. However, there are literally thousands if not millions of people capable of acquiring these skills in a relatively short time. At the end of the season, if the league were to stick with the replacements, will attendance or viewership figures be reduced any this season or future season? With replacement players, yes, with replacement officials, not likely. The old refs have to hope for some major, outcome-altering blunder near the end of a widely viewed game; that’s really the only leverage they have. Otherwise, at some point along the way, “replacement” refs slowly become simple “refs.”

[Guiness]

http://thesportseconomist.com/2012/0...-replacements/

That sounds about right. Anyone remember the 'replacement air traffic controllers'? Didn't think so, it's a historical footnote that only Micheal Moore ever brings up

[ThunderDan]

http://deadspin.com/5944976/theyre-getting-worse-not-better-here-are-the-28-worst-replacement-official-mistakes-from-week-2

From deadspin, worst 28 calls from week 2.

[mraynrand]

That sounds about right. Anyone remember the 'replacement air traffic controllers'? Didn't think so, it's a historical footnote that only Micheal Moore ever brings up

My uncle doesn't remember the replacement ATCs, because they directed his plane into the side of a mountain.

[denverYooper]

Advanced NFL stats posted an analysis of HFA since 2000. It doesn't explicitly say but I'm assuming that he is just using (home pts - away pts) to get the HFA numbers.

http://www.advancednflstats.com/2012/09/home-field-advantage-is-not-out-of.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Since 2000 the standard deviation for weekly average HFA is 4.0 points, and the average is 2.4 points, which means week 2's 8.7 is not 2 standard deviations from the mean (p=0.40). Week 2 featured only the 15th largest HFA in the past 12+ years. The regular refs were on the field for the 14 weeks with larger HFAs.

[pbmax]

My uncle doesn't remember the replacement ATCs, because they directed his plane into the side of a mountain.

Many people fondly remember the old ATCs while they were drying their luggage after it was fished out of the Potomac.

[pbmax]

Advanced NFL stats posted an analysis of HFA since 2000. It doesn't explicitly say but I'm assuming that he is just using (home pts - away pts) to get the HFA numbers.

http://www.advancednflstats.com/2012...medium=twitter

Several sites including Football Outsiders and Shutdown Corner say that there have been two favorable weeks for the home teams while the others were somewhat unfriendly. Very mixed bag for that theory so far.

[Cheesehead Craig]

I can't wait for a personal foul penalty call from a replacement ref about a player "giving him the business".

[Joemailman]

Somehow, I can't help wondering what Cleft Crusty thinks about all this.