Penalties up in the league this year

[tsylvester]

It was mentioned by the broadcast crew in Sunday's Ravens game, about the only thing they said right, but that is another story.........

 

So many flags this year, it is getting out of hand. Sometimes, they just need to let the guys play. The NFL made a big thing about the officials having head sets to help speed up the game by not having them huddle up any more to discuss a penalty. After all, a back official has to run as much as 30 yards to meet with the head official about a flag he threw. But the head sets were said to speed this up, save that "run".... Wrong, they still huddle for what seems like hours to discuss a call.. and still get it wrong.........

 

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/columnists/rick-gosselin/20150923-gosselin-cowboys-eagles-marred-by-theater-of-the-absurd-out-of-whack-officials.ece

 

 

 

The Tony Corrente crew assessed 26 penalties for 202 yards Sunday night in Philadelphia, including a franchise-record 18 against the Cowboys. That represented the most penalties assessed against an NFL team since the third week of the 2013 season when the New York Jets were penalized 20 times for 168 yards in a game against Buffalo.

And Cowboys-Eagles wasn't even the high-penalty game of the weekend. The Pete Morelli crew assessed 26 penalties for 215 yards in the Baltimore-Oakland game -- 13 more yards than Cowboys-Eagles. And four other penalties were declined in that game.

Oakland was assessed 16 penalties for 106 yards. Over in the Eastern time zone, Buffalo was assessed 14 penalties for 140 yards in its game against New England. In the Central time zone, Chicago was assessed 14 penalties for 170 yards against the Cardinals.

Last weekend was completely out of whack by NFL officiating standards.

In 2014, the highest-penalty weekend came in the 13th weekend when 225 penalties were assessed league-wide. The most yardage assessed was the 1,969 in the third weekend.

I've been charting NFL penalties since 2001. The worst weekend ever for yellow flags was the 12th weekend of the 2005 season when 254 penalties were assessed totaling 2,070 yards.

But last weekend beat that by a bunch -- 298 penalties for 2,659 yards. That was 44 more penalties for almost 600 more yards than the worst weekend in the last 14 years. That was 73 more penalties for almost 700 more yards than the worst weekend of 2014.

 

 

 

Wow.... and this past week end was even worse.... But there may be hope-

 

So I called an officiating friend for an explanation. He said September was the "learning month" in the NFL. Officiating crew are given points of emphasis each season -- penalties that deserve greater scrutiny, such as defensive holding. But the starters play so little in the preseason, the message doesn't come across as clearly in August as it does in September. Thus, the flags.

The numbers back him up. Six times in the last 10 seasons the high-penalty weekend came in the month of September. The players figure out what they can and can't get away with in the opening month and then the season smooths out, the penalties decline.

 

 

 

 

Against Okland, the raiders and Ravens combined for 26 penalties for 215 yards....

 

Against the Bengals, the Ravens had 13 penalties for 116 yards (Bengals had 9 for 67 yards....)