Referee calls · 2019–2026
Do refs favor the Vikings?
A little. Judgment calls have been worth +0.53 points a game to the Vikings since 2019, the 4th-most of 32 teams. In the playoffs: +3.91 points a game over 4 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 Vikings minus the calls that hurt them.
Biggest calls for the Vikings
- Defensive Holding on the Packers (Xavier McKinney), 3 yards, wiping out the play · 2026 Week 1 · 39 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Browns, 18 yards, wiping out the play · 2021 Week 4 · 30 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 Saints (Marshon Lattimore), 41 yards · 2022 Week 4 · 26 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Bills, 19 yards · 2022 Week 10 · 24 pts of win probability
Biggest calls against
- Offensive Pass Interference on the Vikings (Justin Jefferson), 7 yards, wiping out the play · 2020 Week 13 · 39 pts of win probability
- Illegal Use of Hands on the Vikings (Harrison Smith), 5 yards, wiping out the play · 2021 Week 8 · 38 pts of win probability
- Intentional Grounding on the Vikings (Carson Wentz), 16 yards · 2025 Week 4 · 31 pts of win probability
- Intentional Grounding on the Vikings (Joshua Dobbs), 15 yards · 2023 Week 11 · 31 pts of win probability
- Offensive Holding on the Vikings (Kyle Rudolph), 10 yards, wiping out the play · 2020 Week 10 · 22 pts of win probability
Questions
Do refs favor the Vikings?
A little. Judgment calls have been worth +0.53 points a game to the Vikings since 2019, the 4th-most of 32 teams.
What about the playoffs?
In the playoffs: +3.91 points a game over 4 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 · Minnesota Vikings, every season