Hold On, Week 14 Edition
December 11, 2019
By Noone From Tampa
This is part 14 of my ongoing series on penalties in the NFL.
Sometimes reality comes crashing back to Earth. The Redskins played well this week, much better than in the Jets or Bills games, but they did not play well enough to beat a good Packers team. They are officially eliminated from the 2019 playoffs, so now there is no chance of a late-season miracle.
The Redskins are still tracking for the third overall pick in the draft with three games to go against the Eagles, Giants and Cowboys. At best, the Redskins can hope to spoil someone’s dream by winning one or more of those games.
For the fourth time this season, the Redskins had less penalties than their opponent. The team also had the fewest total penalties called this season, five, and they tied with their effort in the Bills game for the fewest accepted penalties, with five.
The was no big penalty or officiating controversy in the game, but the Packers seemed to get very generous allowances on their blocking. There were 4 or 5 very blatant holding “no calls” in the game, including a virtual takedown.
The league-wide rankings through week 14:
|
Rank |
Total Penalties Called | Total Penalties Accepted |
Net Difference |
Net Yards Difference |
| 1 | Jacksonville | Jacksonville | Oakland | Oakland |
| 2 | Cleveland | Oakland
Tampa Bay |
Jacksonville | New Orleans |
| 3 | Oakland | New Orleans | Jacksonville | |
| 4 | Tampa Bay | Cleveland | Washington | Cleveland |
| 5 | Detroit | Arizona | Buffalo
Baltimore |
Kansas City |
New Orleans, Kansas City, Buffalo and Baltimore all show up in the top 5 rankings this week.
Through thirteen weeks, the Redskins have 113 total calls with 93 accepted, while their opponents have 86 total penalties calls with 73 accepted, resulting in a net difference of -20. The Redskins decreased their net yardage difference to -77 yards.
The league chart below shows the number of penalties by team, both before and against, and the net difference through week 14:
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, a penalty is called every 10.5 plays and an average of 16.9 flags are thrown in each game.
The next graph is the overall league penalty call distribution across the league through 14 weeks for penalties that have 1% or greater of the total calls:
The most common penalty 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 | 22.3% |
| False Start | 13.0% |
| Defensive Holding | 8.2% |
| Defensive Pass Interference | 7.4% |
| Defensive Offside | 5.3% |
| Illegal Block Above the Waist | 4.2% |
| Unnecessary Roughness | 4.1% |
| Illegal Use of Hands | 3.6% |
| Neutral Zone Infraction | 3.6% |
| Roughing the Passer | 3.3% |
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 -4 calls now with the Redskins having 34 and their opponents 30. The offense committed two penalties in the game, and special teams committed one.
Next, the following chart shows which Redskins players are getting the penalty calls:
This graph has been filtered for players committing more than one penalty. The Redskins penalty leaders this week are Morgan Moses, Donald Penn, Brandon Scherff, Jimmy Moreland, and Jeremy Sprinkle. Moses did pick up two penalties this week, offensive holding and false start. He is now tied for tenth with eight other players for the most penalized, who each have ten total calls against them. Laremy Tunsil from Houston has the most false starts with 12. Garett Bolles from Denver has the most holding calls with 12. Moses is a more “well-balanced” lineman with five holding calls and five false starts.
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 total calls per game with 6 accepted.
Upcoming game: Philadelphia Eagles average 7.4 penalties a game with 6.3 accepted, whereas the Redskins average 8.7 penalties called and 7.2 accepted.
I’ll be back next week with an analysis of week fifteen of the league stats.
Data Sources: nflpenalties.com, nfl.com