Referee calls · 2019–2026
Do refs favor the Broncos?
No more than most teams. Judgment calls have been worth +0.34 points a game to the Broncos since 2019, 10th of 32 teams. In the playoffs: +1.55 points a game over 3 games, a small sample that swings on a handful of flags.
Call luck, season by season
Points per regular-season game from judgment calls: the calls that helped the Broncos minus the calls that hurt them.
Biggest calls for the Broncos
- Offensive Holding on the Commanders, 10 yards, wiping out the play · 2025 Week 13 · 63 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Bills (Tre'Davious White), 30 yards · 2025 Divisional round · 36 pts of win probability
- Offensive Holding on the Chiefs, 10 yards, wiping out the play · 2020 Week 13 · 32 pts of win probability
- Intentional Grounding on the Vikings (Joshua Dobbs), 15 yards · 2023 Week 11 · 31 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Bills (Taron Johnson), 28 yards · 2023 Week 10 · 29 pts of win probability
Biggest calls against
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Broncos (Talanoa Hufanga), 5 yards, wiping out the play · 2025 Week 13 · 68 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Broncos, 1 yards · 2025 Week 7 · 39 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Broncos (Patrick Surtain II), 19 yards, wiping out the play · 2023 Week 11 · 28 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Broncos (Riley Moss), 47 yards · 2025 Week 11 · 25 pts of win probability
- Offensive Pass Interference on the Broncos (Courtland Sutton), 8 yards, wiping out the play · 2022 Week 17 · 23 pts of win probability
Questions
Do refs favor the Broncos?
No more than most teams. Judgment calls have been worth +0.34 points a game to the Broncos since 2019, 10th of 32 teams.
What about the playoffs?
In the playoffs: +1.55 points a game over 3 games, a small sample that swings on a handful of flags.
How is this measured?
Every flag that isn’t a pre-snap foul (holding, pass interference, roughing, unnecessary roughness and the like) is valued in expected points for the team it helped, including any play it wiped out. A flag on a player who is rarely flagged counts more (up to twice), one on a frequent offender less. A team’s call luck is the calls that helped it minus the calls that hurt it. It says how the calls went, not why: teams that throw deep draw more pass interference, for example.
Is it more than chance?
Mostly not. A team’s call luck in odd weeks barely predicts its call luck in even weeks (correlation 0.06 across all teams since 2019), which is what chance looks like. Over 32 teams, a few will always sit at the top of this list.
All teams, 2026 · Referee crews · Denver Broncos, every season