Sports – FiveThirtyEight — Penalties RSS




Why Did NFL Teams Score So Much This Season?

The 2020 NFL season was explosive. A year that began with historic levels of scoring ended with 100 total touchdowns scored in Week 17, the most for the final week of the season since at least 2001. That bounty pushed season totals to all-time highs. Teams passed for 871 touchdowns — more than at any […]

Continue reading



Scoring Is Way Up In The NFL. Which Teams Does That Help?

If you’ve watched the NFL this season and thought that there’s an awful lot of touchdowns being scored, you’re not wrong. Scoring is up across the NFL. Way up. Going into Week 5, teams had reached the end zone 371 times, the most through four weeks in NFL history. Teams are passing for 1.8 touchdowns […]

Continue reading



Unsportsmanlike Penalties Are Still College Football’s Calling Card

The Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns don’t annually square off and beget massive ratings because the schools admire each other. In fact, most accounts indicate the teams from neighboring states have detested one other for more than a century. The rivalry’s namesake, the Red River Showdown, literally comes from a historic dispute that induced martial […]

Continue reading



Can NFL Refs Do What Analysts Never Could: Get Coaches To Pass More?

Through the first two weeks of the season, holding penalties in the NFL are at an all-time high. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Heading into the 2019 season, the NFL competition committee mandated that referees enforce offensive holding more strictly than they have in the past. The points of emphasis document published by the NFL […]

Continue reading