Hold On – 2022 Season Finale

January 17,2023

By Noonefromtampa

One common theme we saw during the season was the lack of calls on obvious defensive pass interference (DPI) committed by opposing defensive backs. I decided to investigate the numbers behind DPI across the league for the last five years.

How many calls were there?

Year	Total Enforced Calls	Avg Calls Per Team
2022	225	7.03
2021	308	9.63
2020	314	9.81
2019	284	8.88
2018	249	7.78

As you can see, 2022 had the fewest number of enforced calls in the last five years and a 27% reduction from the prior year. As you may remember from reading previous Hold On posts, Washington committed 11 DPIs in 2022 and was tied for second overall in the league.

What do Washington’s numbers look like over the years?

Year	By Washington	By Opponent	Net Difference	Yds Difference
2022	11	6	-5	-140
2021	11	10	-1	-28
2020	6	5	-1	-35
2019	4	8	4	20
2018	7	5	-2	-105

The columns in this table represent the number of penalties committed by Washington, penalties committed by Washington’s opponents, the net difference between the two counts and the net difference between the yardage assessed against Washington and Washington’s opponents.

Every year except for 2019, Washington has been called for committing more DPI penalties than their opponents. On the face of it, Washington has not been one of the NFL’s better teams during that period, so them having more DPI penalties than their opponents could be expected. However, the opponents during a season cover the gamut of good to bad so it should average out over the course of the season.  In four out of the five years, the number of DPI calls committed by opponents has been less than the league average per team.

A different view of the numbers

Another way of viewing the numbers is where the team ranked in the league against the other teams.

Year	By Washington	By Opponent	Net Difference	Yds Difference
2022	2	20	27	29
2021	9	13	18	21
2020	26	29	17	20
2019	32	15	6	12
2018	16	26	23	29

In three of out the five years, Washington ranked in the bottom 25% of the league in opponent calls, net difference and net yards. The other two years the team was no better than the middle of the pack.

What does all this mean?

While I doubt there is institutional bias against Washington in officiating (no matter what it looks like during games), it does appear that Washington is not getting balanced calls during the course of the season. While a game should never come down to a penalty call, as fans saw this season, penalties called or not called can be a determining factor is winning and losing games. For a team on the cusp, like Washington, a single call could be the difference between being in the playoffs and watching them on big screen at home.

Whoever is coaching the team next season should send some of the missed calls from this season to the attention of the league office, a little preemptive complaining.