I don't believe the refs helped that much @GrumpyCoder ...
It has nothing to do with believes, but with objective statistics and prediction models in specified confidence intervals. You can train and run your own models if you're into that kind of thing and see what the outcome it.
The interesting part is, that the Eagles defense was really good. Funny enough, they played exactly the same defense that the Buccs did when they won the SB against the Chiefs. Surprised to see that strategy still worked years later.
There are different types of penalties. Throwing a flag with the right call. Throwing a flag when it should not have been thrown. Throwing a flag and making the wrong call, e.g. offensive pass interference when it was a defensive one. And then there are situations when a flag should have been thrown, but wasn't. The later can't even be challenged and doesn't show up in any official statistics. If you include these in statistics, the Chiefs are among the most penalised teams in the NFL.
There have been several of these in the game, especially of the last kind. Those lead to new first downs of the Eagles. They would have been out otherwise, giving the Chiefs offense a new chance and the defense a chance to rest. You could see they were already dead tired towards the end of the second quarter, simply due to time of possession as a direct result of flags or lack thereof.
Then there is the lack of baseline to make such calls. The unnecessary roughness call never should have been one, it was a regular fight for the ball (no player had the chance to catch it). There was no risk of injury at all. When this is not called in other games, why is it called now? And why was it called in favor for the Eagles new first down? So, maybe that's how the refs call this thing in this particular game. But when Mahomes arm was hit for a fumble and the ball was long gone, he received a late hit in the facemask, causing his head to move back (risk of neck injury) and falling on his back with the risk of his head hitting the ground (potential concussion). So why is one called, the other is not? 20 years ago, they just would have let them play it out without any flag. That's fine, but as a ref, you can't have different baselines for calls in the same game or at least you should not.
There was a similar situation during an Eagles snap. The Chiefs player moved, a flag was thrown for neutral zone infraction. One of the close up video feeds clearly shows that the center moved his fingers/hand and the defense player reacted to it. Based on the games in the regular seasons, this would have been a false start. With modern NFL rules, the center is not allowed to do this. Again, 20 years ago, the center could have danced around before the snap and it would have been fine. Different baseline from different refs for different games.
Stuff like that should not happen. There need to be clear definitions and baselines for penalties. This got worse and worse the past few years. And as I said before, the technology exists to do this automatically and also catch all the things the refs on the field don't see (or don't want to see). The NFL just doesn't want it and makes claims the technology doesn't work.
https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profo...news/nfl-claims-technology-cant-spot-the-ball. This has been proven to be wrong over and over. First time I got in touch with such technology was in the Kumar lab at UPenn, ages ago. I've since used similar technology in my own lab. Technology is there, it works. The NFL wants the human component to make the decisions, ironically it's the one that makes the most mistakes, due to different baselines, because they can't see everything or due to bias. And that's what can cause a game to go one way or another. Several international commentators have said the refs must be joking and keep bringing up the question why technology isn't used, not just in the SB game, but the past few years.
And to be honest, there are only a handful of good games throughout a full season. The rest is just wondering about the refs. The NFL is nice for me, for statistics, detection- and prediction-models. So in other words, because of the math. As for sports, I'd much rather watch the NHL, but too many games at bad times and impossible to follow for me. The sunday games of the NFL are perfect for me, but for sports it's a clown show these days. I'll watch a few NHL playoff games and hopefully the finals and hope that the Oilers will finally make it this year. They really deserve it, just like the Niners in the NFL.
