Refs Favor Cowboys?

Sunday, August 13th, 2006...12:49 pm by Lee Gibbons

A couple of years back, when the Redskins were losing consistently to the Cowboys, you often heard Redskins fans complain about the refs favoring the Cowboys. It turns out, for last year anyways, they may have been on to something. Below is a table showing last year’s penalties stats for the teams of the NFC East. The Redskins and Giants both rank around the league average (1:1 ratio of penalties for and against), but the Eagles and Cowboys are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The Eagles were flagged way more often than their opponents and the Cowboys were flagged much less often.

TEAM	PEN	RK	OPP	RK	TOT
NYG	167	3	170	1	337
PHI	160	6	130	22	290
DAL	125	25	159	2	284
WAS	126	21	122	27	248

You can’t draw meaningful conclusions based on one year’s worth of stats, but last year the Cowboys bias was in full effect. Other teams who were much less penalized than their opponents (and prepare to be shocked by this list): New England, Denver, Seattle, and Indianapolis.

Full NFL stats here (see comment #6)