Hold On: Week 3 Edition
September 26, 2019
By Noone From Tampa
This is part 3 of my new ongoing series on penalties in the NFL. As I mentioned, I’m going to write something new for you every week on this topic that hopefully brings you some insight as to the effect of penalties on a team’s performance, particularly the Washington Redskins.
First thing this week is I want to address this week is the emphasis being placed on reducing offensive holding calls by the league. Through 3 weeks here is the distribution of penalties calls the officials:
As you can see, the offensive holding calls dwarf all the other calls made. The NFL recognized the impact this was having on games and attempted to address it this past week without giving the offensive linemen carte blanche on grabbing. The average number of offensive holding calls accepted per game is 3.81. Believe it or not, the Redskins are only averaging 3.0 holding calls per game so the team is actually below the league average.
The next chart below shows the number of penalties by team, both before and against and the net difference through week 3. The numbers are only penalties called and do not take into account whether they are declined or not. The Redskins ranked 4th in penalties called against them. The most penalized teams through week 3 are the Cleveland Browns and Atlanta Falcons. Take a look at the data in graph form:
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 the team has. At this point in the season there is little correlation between penalties and wins.
The Redskins are tied with San Francisco for 6th worst in net difference in penalties. The Redskins are averaging 9 penalties called against them per game with an average 7 penalties accepted against them.
The next graph is the distribution of penalties between the Redskins and their opponents. Washingon achieved some parity in the holding calls as compared to where they were last week. One thing Case Keenum does well is drawing the opposing defense offside with his hard count. The Redskins were again called once for false starts in the Chicago game, which is the other big area of concern.
Lastly, which players are getting the penalty calls?
Chase Roullier is still the only offensive lineman who has not been tagged with a penalty call. Donald Penn continues to lead the team in penalties called against him.
The breakdown by unit is offense 14 calls (56%), defense 10 calls (32%), and special teams 4 calls (13%).
The somewhat good news is that the Redskins do not lead the league in any of the most common penalties areas: offensive holding, false start, defensive holding, defensive pass interference, defensive offside, neutral zone infraction and illegal block above the waist.
I’ll be back next week with an analysis of week four. Also, if you have specific questions about penalties you can tweet them to me @noonefromtampa #penquest.
Data Sources: nflpenalties.com, nfl.com