Learn · 2019–2026, every judgment call
Is the NFL rigged?
Not in the referee calls. Across 1,919 regular-season games since 2019, each judgment call weighted by the moment it came, the calls gave home teams a small edge (+0.9% of a win a game) and no special treatment to the teams the theory names: they cost the Chiefs 0.60 wins a season, 31st of 32.
How luck is calculated, in short
Every game replayed 4,000 times from its own plays. Luck is the result minus the share of replays a team wins. Show the 3 steps and an example Hide
- Reshuffle the game and replay it. We take every snap each team ran that day and deal them out again at random into new drives, matched by down and distance: on 3rd and 7, a team gets one of its own 3rd-and-long plays from that game. A play can come up twice in one replay, or not at all. Each drive runs until a touchdown, a field goal try, a punt, a turnover or a failed 4th down, over as many possessions as the real game had. Then we see who scored more, and do it all 4,000 times.
Kept as it happened
- Every snap’s yards: runs, catches, incompletions, sacks, scrambles, and the flags on them
- How often each team fumbled, and how many interception-worthy throws its quarterback made
- The number of possessions
Drawn again
- The order the plays come in
- Whether an interception-worthy throw is caught, at the rate that defense catches them
- Who recovers a fumble (the fumbling team keeps 52%)
- Whether a field goal is good, at the league rate for its distance
No matchup is modeled on its own: there are no player ratings, no pass rush against the quarterback, no receiver against his cornerback. They don’t need to be. Every snap in the deck was played against that opponent that day, so how the pass rush fared against that quarterback, the receivers against those defenders and the line against that front is already in the plays: in the sacks, the scrambles, the completions and the stuffed runs. Where a team ran few plays of a kind that day, some draws come from its earlier games that season. Fourth downs follow one rule for everyone: kick when in range, go for it on short yardage in the other team’s half, and whenever a touchdown is needed late.
- Compare it with the result. The share of replays a team wins is what its play was worth. Luck is the result (1 for a win, 0 for a loss) minus that share. Times 100 it is a game’s luck index, from −100 to +100; added up over a season it is luck in wins.
- Find where it came from. This part is not a replay. Every chance play of the real game is scored on its own: what happened, minus how often it happens for that player in that spot, times what was at stake. Here each player’s own record counts: a kicker’s from that distance, in that wind and cold; a receiver’s drop rate; how often that defense catches interception-worthy throws; how often that offense and that defense convert on 3rd and 4th down. Judgment calls count too, at half, each weighted by how often the flagged player draws one. It doesn’t change the replay; it shows where the luck came from.
An example: Bears 24, Packers 22 Week 18 2024
Who wins the 4,000 replays
- The game
- The Packers lost 24–22, but with both teams’ plays dealt out again, they won 99% of the replays. Packers: 100 × (0 − 0.99) = −99 Bears: 100 × (1 − 0.01) = +99
- One play, scored on its own
- C. Santos made a 51-yard field goal. Going by his record, the distance and the conditions, he makes that kick 62% of the time. From that distance a make is worth 4.5 points more than a miss, on average: the 3 points, plus the field position, since after a miss the other team takes over at the spot of the kick. Luck is what happened (1 for a make, 0 for a miss) minus the 62%, times those 4.5 points: Bears: (1 − 0.62) × 4.5 = +1.7 points Counted at the moment it came, with 0:02 left in the 4th quarter, that was worth 38% of a win to the Bears.
- The season
- The Packers finished 2024 at 11–6. The replays of those 17 games add up to 12.5 wins. Luck in wins: 11 − 12.5 = −1.5
Each step in full, and how well the numbers hold up: methodology.
What we can test
A script can’t be proven or disproven from the outside, but the way it would have to work can be checked. If the league steered results, the steering would show up where officials have discretion: the judgment calls. Holding, pass interference, roughing and the like, as opposed to false starts and offside, which leave nothing to judge. We value every judgment call since 2019 by what it did to the helped team’s chance of winning at that moment, including any play it wiped out (how). So a flag in a decided game counts for nothing and one at the turn of a close game for most of a win. Then we add them up per team.
The Chiefs
The team most often named. In the regular season the judgment calls have cost the Chiefs 0.60 wins a season since 2019, 31st of 32. In 19 playoff games they’ve been worth +3.4% of a win a game (± 3.0%): a sample that small swings on a few flags either way. The Cowboys, the other team the theory likes, sit 11th (+0.13 wins a season).
The Chiefs’ close games tell the same story. In 2024 they went 11–0 in one-score games, where the replays with the same day’s form give them 8.2 wins; in 2025 they went 1–9, where the replays give them 5.3. A record that swings from one side of its replays to the other looks like luck evening out, not like a script. The Chiefs in one-score games
Every team
What the judgment calls were worth to each team since 2019, in wins over a 17-game season: the calls that helped it minus the calls that hurt it, each weighted by the moment it came. The ± is one standard error: over about 120 games a team’s average is still this uncertain.
| # | Team | Calls, wins a season | ± | Games | Playoffs, share of a win a game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Steelers | +0.75 | 0.29 | 120 | −3.0% (5) |
| 2 |  Vikings | +0.49 | 0.25 | 120 | +4.8% (4) |
| 3 |  Bengals | +0.49 | 0.24 | 119 | −6.2% (7) |
| 4 |  Falcons | +0.43 | 0.22 | 120 | – |
| 5 |  Chargers | +0.31 | 0.30 | 120 | +11.9% (3) |
| 6 |  Rams | +0.30 | 0.25 | 120 | +1.8% (12) |
| 7 |  Packers | +0.30 | 0.21 | 120 | +0.6% (9) |
| 8 |  Panthers | +0.23 | 0.20 | 120 | +9.2% (1) |
| 9 |  Colts | +0.21 | 0.24 | 120 | +1.6% (1) |
| 10 |  Broncos | +0.18 | 0.25 | 120 | +18.9% (3) |
| 11 |  Cowboys | +0.13 | 0.28 | 120 | −4.8% (4) |
| 12 |  Texans | +0.09 | 0.22 | 120 | −1.1% (8) |
| 13 |  Dolphins | +0.07 | 0.19 | 120 | +3.6% (2) |
| 14 |  Seahawks | 0.00 | 0.19 | 120 | −4.9% (7) |
| 15 |  Giants | −0.02 | 0.24 | 120 | −3.7% (2) |
| 16 |  Cardinals | −0.03 | 0.23 | 120 | +1.8% (1) |
| 17 |  Patriots | −0.03 | 0.20 | 120 | −5.7% (6) |
| 18 |  Commanders | −0.05 | 0.21 | 120 | −1.3% (4) |
| 19 |  Jaguars | −0.06 | 0.25 | 120 | +1.9% (3) |
| 20 |  Lions | −0.07 | 0.27 | 120 | −0.5% (4) |
| 21 |  Browns | −0.09 | 0.24 | 120 | +2.2% (3) |
| 22 |  Raiders | −0.11 | 0.25 | 120 | −3.4% (1) |
| 23 |  Titans | −0.13 | 0.24 | 120 | +8.9% (5) |
| 24 |  Buccaneers | −0.16 | 0.21 | 120 | −0.2% (10) |
| 25 |  Eagles | −0.20 | 0.20 | 120 | +0.8% (11) |
| 26 |  Jets | −0.23 | 0.20 | 120 | – |
| 27 |  49ers | −0.24 | 0.20 | 120 | −2.4% (14) |
| 28 |  Bears | −0.27 | 0.23 | 120 | 0.0% (3) |
| 29 |  Bills | −0.39 | 0.22 | 119 | −7.2% (15) |
| 30 |  Saints | −0.59 | 0.21 | 120 | +19.5% (3) |
| 31 |  Chiefs | −0.60 | 0.28 | 120 | +3.4% (19) |
| 32 |  Ravens | −0.71 | 0.26 | 120 | −3.7% (8) |
More than chance?
Somewhat. If every team had the same expectation, team averages over this many games would still spread by about 0.24 wins a season; the real spread is 0.33, 1.4 times as wide. But the extra spread behaves like a team trait, not a favor: a team’s call luck carries from one season to the next at a correlation of 0.17 (192 season pairs), which fits style and discipline better than favoritism. Within any one season it is mostly noise. And the teams at the top, the Steelers, the Vikings and the Bengals, aren’t the ones the theory names.
Home teams
The one edge that stands out is home field: judgment calls have been worth +0.9% of a win a game to the home team over 1,883 games (± 0.4%). Home teams won 53% of those games, +3.4% over an even split, so the calls are about 28% of home-field advantage. Home edges in officiating are well documented in other sports too. Penalties by team, home and away
What luck does to records
Much of what looks scripted is chance. About 38% of the spread in NFL records is luck (how we measure it), so every season produces teams that win far more close games than their play deserved, and the next season they usually don’t. We replay every game with the way both teams actually played to show which results were earned: the luckiest wins since 2019, and the biggest upsets, and which were deserved.
Questions
Do refs favor the Chiefs?
No. Judgment calls have been worth −0.60 wins a season to the Chiefs since 2019 (−3.5% of a win a game), 31st of 32 teams. In the playoffs: +3.4% of a win a game (± 3.0%) over 19 games, within what chance produces over that few games.
Do home teams get better calls?
A little: +0.9% of a win a game from judgment calls, about 2.7 standard errors from zero over 1,883 games. Home edges in officiating are well documented in other sports too.
Do some teams get more help than others?
The gaps between teams are wider than chance alone would make them: team averages spread by 0.33 wins a season, against 0.24 if every team had the same expectation. A team’s call luck carries into the next season at a correlation of 0.17, which points to style and discipline. The top of the list is the Steelers, the Vikings and the Bengals.