Hold On, Week 10 Edition
November 16, 2019
By Noone From Tampa
This is part 10 of my ongoing series on penalties in the NFL.
No loss, bye week, and short column.
With the Redskins on a bye week, I got a chance to check out some other games. The NFL used to have a problem with defining and identifying a catch. They solved that problem. Now it seems the definition of what constitutes offensive or defensive pass interference is in question. Across different games, I saw pass interference called and not called against offensive and defensive players on very similar plays. There was a distinct lack of consistency to the calls. What was called as pass interference in one game was not called in another.
I think the solution is that 2 to 3 members of each official crew need to be full time employees of the league. This would give those individuals the time to review plays and meet over how to call plays during the season. The inconsistency in officiating is detrimental to the game and to the fan experience.
Here are the league-wide penalty rankings through week 10:
|
Rank |
Total Penalties Called | Total Penalties Accepted |
Net Difference |
Net Yards Difference |
| 1 | Cleveland | Arizona | Oakland | Cleveland |
| 2 | Oakland
Arizona |
Oakland | Cleveland | Oakland |
| 3 | Cleveland | Arizona
New Orleans |
Minnesota | |
| 4 | Tampa Bay
Minnesota Kansas City |
Tampa Bay
|
Kansas City | |
| 5 | NY Jets | Washington | Baltimore |
Cleveland and Oakland are the two teams which have consistently committed penalties so far this season. Oakland has won 5 games and the Browns 3 times [The Browns won their 4th game on Thursday night, but those penalties count toward week 11.]
Tampa Bay also makes its fair share of mistakes; however, they don’t have the same level of impact. The Bucs have Jameis Winston for that.
The league chart below shows the number of penalties by team, both before and against and the net difference through week 9:
The green part of the bar graph is the number of penalties against that team, the blue part shows number of penalties called against the opponent, the yellow line represents the net difference between the two, and the dark green line is the number of wins.
Across the NFL, the per game stats remain the same, with a penalty called every 10 plays and each game having 17.5 flags thrown in it.
The next graph shows the overall league penalty call distribution across the league through 10 weeks:
The most common is still offensive holding and is called 1.9 times more than the next most frequent one, false start.
The top 10 penalties in the NFL and the corresponding percentage of overall penalties called are:
| Penalty | % of Calls |
| Offensive Holding | 23.6% |
| False Start | 12.9% |
| Defensive Holding | 8.5% |
| Defensive Pass Interference | 6.6% |
| Defensive Offside | 5.6% |
| Unnecessary Roughness | 3.9% |
| Illegal Block Above the Waist | 3.9% |
| Illegal Use of Hands | 3.7% |
| Roughing the Passer | 3.5% |
| Offensive Pass Interference | 3.4% |
Redskins upcoming game: The New York Jets get called for 10 penalties a game with 8.5 accepted. The Redskins are averaging 9.2 calls a game with 8.5 accepted
I’ll be back next week with an analysis of week 11 stats.
Data Sources: nflpenalties.com, nfl.com