Is It Relevant Which Crew Officiates a Game?

(Correlation - not causation)

The table below shows the total of the FFF players' 2010 winning percentage, broken out by which crew officiated each game.  "Wins" are the number of times our FFF players picked the correct winner of the game.  The average success rate of all FFF'ers, in 2010, over all games is 60%.

Ref Ump Wins Picks Pct
Steratore, Gene Hannah, Butch 156 310 50%
Green, Scott Stritesky, Bruce 157 309 51%
Hochuli, Ed Brown, Chad 161 308 52%
Coleman, Walt Ellison, Roy 163 309 53%
Winter, Ron Michalek, Tony 167 307 54%
Morelli, Peter Fowler, Ruben 170 310 55%
McAulay, Terry King, Paul 176 308 57%
Corrente, Tony Bryan, Fred 202 331 61%
Triplette, Jeff Rice, Jeff 190 309 61%
Boger, Jerome Paganelli, Carl 192 310 62%
Carey, Mike Hall, Richard 193 310 62%
Anderson, Walt Schuster, Bill 197 309 64%
Leavy, Bill Jenkins, Darrell 198 309 64%
Blakeman, Clete DeFelice, Garth 202 313 65%
Cheffers, Carl Wash, Undrey 216 310 70%
Riveron, Alberto Dawson, Scott 220 309 71%
Parry, John Ferrell, Dan 225 311 72%
Averages       60%

If we look at where NFL officiating crews rank in the number of penalties called (including penalties that were declined) in a few categories where discretion and controversy tend to apply:

We note that the crews with either the highest number or lowest number of combined calls (highlighted in yellow) correlates to games among which our FFF'ers were the least successful in predicting the outcome.

Further, FFF'ers were most successful in predicting outcomes of games officiated by crews whose number of calls were neither extremely high nor extremely low (highlighted in green).

Ref Ump Pct 2010
DPI		 2010
OPI		 2010
RTP		 2010
Index
Steratore, Gene Hannah, Butch 50% 10 3 3 16
Green, Scott Stritesky, Bruce 51% 6 5 7 18
Hochuli, Ed Brown, Chad 52% 24 6 8 38
Coleman, Walt Ellison, Roy 53% 11 1 1 13
Winter, Ron Michalek, Tony 54% 17 3 3 23
Morelli, Peter Fowler, Ruben 55% 7 9 5 21
McAulay, Terry King, Paul 57% 16 8 7 31
Corrente, Tony Bryan, Fred 61% 14 8 6 28
Triplette, Jeff Rice, Jeff 61% 16 5 4 25
Boger, Jerome Paganelli, Carl 62% 20 5 3 28
Carey, Mike Hall, Richard 62% 17 10 3 30
Anderson, Walt Schuster, Bill 64% 11 5 4 20
Leavy, Bill Jenkins, Darrell 64% 17 0 5 22
Blakeman, Clete DeFelice, Garth 65% 10 3 4 17
Cheffers, Carl Wash, Undrey 70% 9 7 10 26
Riveron, Alberto Dawson, Scott 71% 6 4 10 20
Parry, John Ferrell, Dan 72% 10 6 7 23
Averages   60% 13 5 5 23

In terms of predictability, the 2010 season was not an outlier for these crews, when compared to their combined calls over the last three seasons:

Ref Ump 2010
Index		 2008-10
DPI		 2008-10
OPI		 2008-10
RTP		 2008-10
Index
Steratore, Gene Hannah, Butch 16 35 14 9 58
Green, Scott Stritesky, Bruce 18 33 22 12 67
Hochuli, Ed Brown, Chad 38 50 21 20 91
Coleman, Walt Ellison, Roy 13 39 9 4 52
Winter, Ron Michalek, Tony 23 39 14 18 71
Morelli, Peter Fowler, Ruben 21 29 18 12 59
McAulay, Terry King, Paul 31 34 19 15 68
Corrente, Tony Bryan, Fred 28 43 21 18 82
Triplette, Jeff Rice, Jeff 25 41 16 13 70
Boger, Jerome Paganelli, Carl 28 40 14 10 64
Carey, Mike Hall, Richard 30 41 19 14 74
Anderson, Walt Schuster, Bill 20 34 13 15 62
Leavy, Bill Jenkins, Darrell 22 35 7 9 51
Blakeman, Clete DeFelice, Garth 17 * * * *
Cheffers, Carl Wash, Undrey 26 34 15 15 64
Riveron, Alberto Dawson, Scott 20 28 14 21 63
Parry, John Ferrell, Dan 23 28 21 12 61
Averages   23 36 16 13 65

*2010 was Clete Blakeman's first season as an NFL Referee.

No causation is implied here, though our FFF'ers may want to consider their picks more closely where either Ed Hochuli or Walt Coleman's crews are officiating.

Likewise, where Cheffers, Riveron, or Parry's crews are officiating, we may not be as concerned that officiating will be a factor in our picks.