Hold On, Week 13 Edition
December 5, 2019
by Noone From Tampa
This is part 13 of my ongoing series on penalties in the NFL.
Whoa! A two-game win streak, who saw that coming? Also, the Redskins have not been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs yet. Yes, the odds maybe a quintillion to one, but as they say “There’s a chance!”.
Another upside for all the doomsayer fans complaining about ruined draft position by winning: the Redskins actually improved to the third pick by strength of schedule tie-breaker. So, the team is still in good position to take an impact player or trade back for greater value.
There was improvement on penalties this week, with 6 called and accepted versus 8 called and accepted last week. It must be the holiday season miracle time, because the offense went an entire game without a holding call or a false start. To top that off, they pushed the Panther defense around for 248 yards rushing. Good games by both Derrius Guice and Adrian Peterson.
The biggest penalty controversy during the game was the two helmet-to-helmet hits. DeAndrew White blasted Trey Quinn and Ryan Anderson hit Greg Olsen with his helmet. Anderson was disqualified, but White was not. In my opinion, if Anderson’s hit required disqualification, then White’s hit should have as well. White led with his helmet and Anderson tried not to hit Olsen with his. It is hard for defensive players to get legal hits when the offensive player is also lowering his head. The alternative is to hit the ball carrier at his knees, which players do not like. The league will probably have to review this in the offseason. Expect White and Anderson to get hit with fines.
The league-wide rankings through week 13:
|
Rank |
Total Penalties Called | Total Penalties Accepted |
Net Difference |
Net Yards Difference |
| 1 | Cleveland
Jacksonville |
Jacksonville | Oakland | Oakland |
| 2 | Oakland | New Orleans | New Orleans | |
| 3 | Oakland | Tampa Bay | Jacksonville | Cleveland |
| 4 | Detroit | Cleveland | Washington | Jacksonville |
| 5 | Tampa Bay | NY Jets | Buffalo | Minnesota |
New Orleans is the only above average team left in the top 5 at this point in the season. As one might expect most of the teams showing up in that chart now are average to bad teams.
Through thirteen weeks, the Redskins have 110 total called penalties with 90 accepted, while their opponents have 81 total penalties calls with 68 accepted, resulting in a net difference of -22. The Redskins increased their net yards difference to -86 yards.
The league chart below shows the number of penalties by team, both before and against and the net difference through week 13:
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 are a penalty called every 10.3 plays and each game having 17.2 flags thrown in it.
The next graph is the overall league penalty call distribution across the league through 13 weeks for penalties that have 1% or greater of the total calls:
The most common is still offensive holding, which is called 1.7 times more than the next most frequent one, false start.
The top 10 penalties in the NFL and the percentage of overall penalties called are:
| Penalty | % of Calls |
| Offensive Holding | 22.7% |
| False Start | 13.1% |
| Defensive Holding | 7.9% |
| Defensive Pass Interference | 7.3% |
| Defensive Offside | 5.3% |
| Illegal Block Above the Waist | 4.1% |
| Unnecessary Roughness | 4.0% |
| Illegal Use of Hands | 3.7% |
| Neutral Zone Infraction | 3.5% |
| Roughing the Passer | 3.4% |
Next, let’s look at what types of penalties are being called on the Redskins and their opponents.
The net difference on holding calls remains at -2 calls now with the Redskins having 32 and their opponents having 30. The defense committed three penalties in this game, the offense two and special teams one.
Next, the following chart shows which players are getting the penalty calls:
The graph has been filtered for players committing more than one penalty. The Redskins penalty leaders this week are Donald Penn, Brandon Scherff, Jimmy Moreland, Morgan Moses, and Jeremy Sprinkle.
Looking at calls by unit, the offense gets over 50% of the penalty calls:
How well is the team doing under the Interim Head Coach Callahan?
Under Gruden, the team average 11.4 total calls per game with 6.1 accepted. Under Callahan that number is 7.5 total calls per game with 6.4 accepted.
Upcoming game: Green Bay Packers who average 8.1 penalties a game with 6.7 accepted versus the Redskins 9.2 penalties called and 7.5 accepted.
I’ll be back next week with an analysis of week fourteen of the league stats.
Data Sources: nflpenalties.com, nfl.com