Referee calls · 2019–2026
Do refs favor the Bills?
No, if anything the opposite. Judgment calls have cost the Bills 0.35 wins a season since 2019, the 4th-most of 32 teams. In the playoffs: −7.5% of a win a game over 15 games, a small sample that swings on a handful of flags.
Call luck, season by season
Wins from judgment calls each regular season: the calls that helped the Bills minus the calls that hurt them, each weighted by the moment it came.
Biggest calls for the Bills
- Offensive Pass Interference on the Patriots (Julian Edelman), 10 yards, wiping out the play · 2019 Week 16 · 21 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Rams, 10 yards · 2020 Week 3 · 20 pts of win probability
- Offensive Pass Interference on the Chiefs (Travis Kelce), 10 yards, wiping out the play · 2022 Week 6 · 19 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Ravens (Marlon Humphrey), 26 yards · 2019 Week 14 · 18 pts of win probability
- Roughing the Kicker on the Dolphins (Zach Sieler), 15 yards · 2025 Week 3 · 18 pts of win probability
Biggest calls against
- Offensive Holding on the Bills, 10 yards, wiping out the play · 2022 Week 9 · 40 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Bills (Tre'Davious White), 30 yards · 2025 Divisional round · 36 pts of win probability
- Offensive Pass Interference on the Bills (Stefon Diggs), 10 yards, wiping out the play · 2023 Week 1 · 30 pts of win probability
- Defensive Pass Interference on the Bills (Taron Johnson), 28 yards · 2023 Week 10 · 29 pts of win probability
- Offensive Holding on the Bills, 10 yards, wiping out the play · 2025 Week 15 · 26 pts of win probability
Questions
Do refs favor the Bills?
No, if anything the opposite. Judgment calls have cost the Bills 0.35 wins a season since 2019, the 4th-most of 32 teams.
What about the playoffs?
In the playoffs: −7.5% of a win a game over 15 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 by what it did to the helped team’s chance of winning at that moment, including any play it wiped out. The same holding call is worth nothing when the game is decided and most of a win at the turn of a close one. 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 · Buffalo Bills, every season