2021 NFL Week 15 Score Report

Well, there's some refball for you.

And it benefits the Rams...  Hmmmmm....

Blatant DPI no-call on 4th down with about 3 minutes left ends any real shot the Seahawks had to beat the Rams.

It really is becoming apparent that you can see where the league is rigging games if you pay attention:  The two major ones you can keep an eye on (Brian Tuohy is always right in pointing out the inconsistent enforcement of offensive holding) are the enforcement of pass interference and roughing the passer.

Anyway, off to the week's work here:

• Lowest-scoring week in over 2 years.  38.825 per game this week, lowest since Week 2 2019.  (Last year:  51.875 -- an almost TWO TOUCHDOWN PER GAME difference)
• Season average:  Down to 45.647.  (Last year:  49.517 -- almost four points down per game)
• Home teams clambered back to 8-8 this week, 109-111-1 for the year.  (Last year:  8-8 for 111-112-1)
• The Over was 6-10 for 98-123-3 for the season.  (Last year:  10-6 for 109-110-5)
• Favorites were 8-7-1 for the week, with Philly pushing tonight.  105-116-2 for the year.  (Last year:  7-9 for 96-122-3)
• Straight up:  Favorites were 12-4 for 137-84-1 for the season.  (Last year:  11-5 for 147-73-1)
• 181 penalties in the 16 games this week (11.3 per game).  2,740 for the 224 games this year.  (12 1/4 per game).  (Last year:  156 (9.75) for 2556 (11.45))
• Two Cliffhangers, both winners in the AFC West (KC and LV).  47 for the year.  (Last year:  2 for 40)
• Seven games finished within one score this week, for only 104 out of 224 games ending that way this year so far.  (Last year:  10 for 121.)
• So, 15 weeks in and 224 games in, we are now over an entire week's schedule behind in games finishing within one score.
• Four games finished non-competitive.  84 for the year.  (Last year:  3 for 67)
• Meaning we are now over an entire week's schedule ahead in non-competitive games -- the same 17-game margin.
• And 2 Last Chance Misses for 51 for the year.  (Last year:  5 for 71)

Interesting side note that I haven't already noted:

• There's another statistic that I track that doesn't get really mentioned.  A game, on my nomenclature, can have the following notations:

1. CLIFF, a Cliffhanger -- the game had a tying or winning score in the final two minutes of regulation or overtime.
2. LCM -- A Last Chance Miss -- the losing team had a reasonable chance at a Cliffhanger, be it an onside kick, a failed drive which could've resulted in a Cliffhanger, or a missed field goal or the like.
3. W8 -- the final score ended within one score without either a Cliffhanger or a Last Chance Miss.  Often, and many times I'll note it off to the side to make sure I don't perk up at it later, the winning team will have had the ball the final over-two minutes of the game.
4. The nomenclature can be blank -- meaning a non-competitive game which was never within eight points at any point in the final quarter.
5. Or the interesting quirk this week is a mark of "4th" on my chart -- meaning that the game got within eight points at some point in the 4th quarter, but didn't end that way.

• You don't see the "4th"s on my statistics here, but you can figure them out by taking the total number of games and subtracting the games finishing within one score and the non-competitive games out.
• This week had five such games.  Last week to have that was Week 17 last year.  Week 3 of this year had six!