luckadjusted

Referee calls · 2019–2026

Do refs favor the Vikings?

A little. Judgment calls have been worth +0.43 wins a season to the Vikings since 2019, the 3rd-most of 32 teams. In the playoffs: +5.8% of a win a game over 4 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 Vikings minus the calls that hurt them, each weighted by the moment it came.

SeasonGamesCalls, winsLeague rankFlags againstFlags forPlayoffs, wins
20262+0.89 1st111 –
202517+0.06 16th5859 –
202417+1.11 3rd5373 +0.20 (1)
202317+0.91 2nd4768 –
202217+2.07 1st4679 +0.09 (1)
202117−1.09 31st8160 –
202016−0.69 26th5155 –
201916−0.24 21st6961 −0.05 (2)

Biggest calls for the Vikings

  1. Defensive Holding on the Packers (Xavier McKinney), 3 yards, wiping out the play · 2026 Week 1 · 39 pts of win probability
  2. Defensive Pass Interference on the Broncos (Patrick Surtain II), 19 yards, wiping out the play · 2023 Week 11 · 28 pts of win probability
  3. Defensive Pass Interference on the Saints (Marshon Lattimore), 41 yards · 2022 Week 4 · 26 pts of win probability
  4. Defensive Pass Interference on the Bills, 19 yards · 2022 Week 10 · 24 pts of win probability
  5. Offensive Pass Interference on the Chargers (Keenan Allen), 10 yards, wiping out the play · 2023 Week 3 · 24 pts of win probability

Biggest calls against

  1. Offensive Pass Interference on the Vikings (Justin Jefferson), 7 yards, wiping out the play · 2020 Week 13 · 39 pts of win probability
  2. Illegal Use of Hands on the Vikings (Harrison Smith), 5 yards, wiping out the play · 2021 Week 8 · 38 pts of win probability
  3. Intentional Grounding on the Vikings (Carson Wentz), 16 yards · 2025 Week 4 · 31 pts of win probability
  4. Intentional Grounding on the Vikings (Joshua Dobbs), 15 yards · 2023 Week 11 · 31 pts of win probability
  5. 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 +0.43 wins a season to the Vikings since 2019, the 3rd-most of 32 teams.

What about the playoffs?

In the playoffs: +5.8% of a win 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 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 · Minnesota Vikings, every season