I saw a prop bet go by that caught my eye. It was built around the longest penalty in the game. They set the over-under at 15.5 yards.
The only penalties that go over 15 yards are on pass interference, so it’s basically a question of whether there will be a PI call accepted of 16-plus yards.
On the one hand, there’s the commonly held belief that when the action moves into the playoffs, the tendency is for the referees to let them play. That was the case for most of the NFC Championship game last week, until there was the huge call on Kevin King at the end.
But at the same time, Kansas City and Tampa Bay are both teams that will take some shots downfield. In Tyreek Hill and Mecole Hardman, KC has a couple of burners who can get downfield (and Sammy Watkins and Demarcus Robinson aren’t slugs either – Watkins had a key long reception in last year’s Super Bowl).
And with the Bucs, they’re overloaded with wide receivers and have the coach with the strongest history of liking to push the ball downfield. It seems like every time I see the Bucs, there’s a long throw on the first or second possession, as if they want to remind the defense of that danger. Mike Evans (pictured) tends to be their most favored receiver on long balls, and he’s a big guy, where he’s often battling for positioning against the defensive back.
I thought this would be an interesting question to explore.
Looking at the stats, they do back up the notion that these offenses will get the ball downfield. In the regular season, only one team (Houston) connected on more passes of 20-plus yards. Kansas City and Tampa Bay were 2nd and 3rd in that category, each connecting on an average of slightly more than 4 passes of 20-plus yards per game.
If there are more passes being attempted to wide receivers downfield, that should increase the odds of a pass interference penalty of 16-plus yards.
| RECEPTIONS OF 20-PLUS YARDS | |
|---|---|
| Team | No |
| Houston | 70 |
| Kansas City | 69 |
| Tampa Bay | 67 |
| Buffalo | 66 |
| Las Vegas | 59 |
| Atlanta | 59 |
| Detroit | 58 |
| Minnesota | 58 |
| Green Bay | 57 |
| Indianapolis | 56 |
| San Francisco | 55 |
| Carolina | 55 |
| LA Chargers | 54 |
| Dallas | 50 |
| LA Rams | 50 |
| Denver | 49 |
| Pittsburgh | 48 |
| Arizona | 45 |
| Seattle | 45 |
| Cleveland | 45 |
| Jacksonville | 45 |
| Tennessee | 44 |
| New Orleans | 44 |
| Philadelphia | 43 |
| Chicago | 42 |
| Washington | 40 |
| Miami | 40 |
| NY Jets | 39 |
| Baltimore | 38 |
| New England | 38 |
| NY Giants | 36 |
| Cincinnati | 35 |
(Note: Kansas City strangely had only 8 completions of 40-plus yards, which is slightly below the league average – 15 other teams had at least 9. I guess opponents are so worried about Hill that they’re tending to drop their guys into coverage more often.)
The other question here is the “let them play” theory – the idea that officials will be less willing to get involved in determining the outcome of the game. That appeared to be the case in the NFC Championship game a couple of years ago, when Nickell Robey-Coleman was able to avoid a pass-interference penalty, helping the Rams win at the Superdome.
But if we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, it doesn’t seem like officiating gets turned off in Super Bowls. In the last 10 years, teams have averaged 5.8 penalties for 46 yards in championship games.
| PENALTIES IN SUPER BOWLS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | No | Yds |
| 2010 | Green Bay | 7 | 67 |
| 2010 | Pittsburgh | 6 | 55 |
| 2011 | New England | 5 | 28 |
| 2011 | N.Y. Giants | 4 | 24 |
| 2012 | San Francisco | 5 | 33 |
| 2012 | Baltimore | 2 | 20 |
| 2013 | Seattle | 10 | 104 |
| 2013 | Denver | 5 | 44 |
| 2014 | Seattle | 7 | 70 |
| 2014 | New England | 5 | 36 |
| 2015 | Denver | 6 | 51 |
| 2015 | Carolina | 12 | 102 |
| 2016 | New England | 4 | 23 |
| 2016 | Atlanta | 9 | 65 |
| 2017 | New England | 1 | 5 |
| 2017 | Philadelphia | 6 | 35 |
| 2018 | L.A. Rams | 9 | 65 |
| 2018 | New England | 3 | 20 |
| 2019 | Kansas City | 4 | 24 |
| 2019 | San Francisco | 5 | 45 |
That’s not wildly different from what those teams did in the regular season. Those teams averaged 6.6 penalties for 58 yards in those years. The league averages in those teams (including all teams) was 6.5 penalties for 56 yards. So in a rough sense, penalties in Super Bowls tend to be down by almost 1 per team (for 12 yards). That’s slightly lower, but it doesn’t quite reach of the level of referees putting their whistles away.
In short, I don’t anything too conclusive on the prop bet of the longest penalty being 15.5 yards. I don’t feel strongly about it either way.
—Ian Allan