Hold On, Week 6 Edition
October 17, 2019
By Noone From Tampa
This is part 6 of my new ongoing series on penalties in the NFL.
This past week, new interim head coach Bill Callahan brought officials to the Redskins’ practices to help the team improve on the mistakes they were making. Well, it helped the offense because for the first time all season, the offense had zero penalties called against it. This week, the Redskins tied their season best with 6 accepted penalties, the same as the Dallas and New England games. More importantly, it was the fewest number of total penalties called against the team all season. So kudos to Coach Callahan for making a difference.
Three teams with poor records, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Washington, all rank in top 5 for three key penalty categories:
| Rank | Total Penalties Called | Total Penalties Accepted | Net Difference |
| 1 | Cleveland | Cleveland | Cleveland |
| 2 | Kansas City | Atlanta | Atlanta |
| 3 | Atlanta | Washington | New Orleans |
| 4 | Washington | Tampa Bay | Washington |
| 5 | Minnesota | Arizona | Jacksonville |
One way to think about this is this: total penalties called equals the number of mistakes the teams makes; the accepted calls are how many times the mistakes costs you; and net difference is the relation of how your mistakes impact you versus how the opponent’s mistakes impact them. Record-wise, the Falcons and the Redskins are the two worst teams in the NFC. The mistakes of two other bad teams, the Dolphins and the Bengals, come from sacks and turnovers, which are obviously different types of execution mistakes.
Through six weeks, the Redskins have 63 total calls, 51 accepted, and 40 opponent penalties accepted, resulting in a net difference of -11. The Browns have 73 total calls, 57 accepted, and 42 opponent penalties accepted, resulting in a net difference of -15.
The league chart below shows the number of penalties by team, both before and against and the net difference through week 6:
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 next graph is the overall league penalty call distribution across the league through 6 weeks:
There were no changes from last week with offensive holding. It is still the most prevalent penalty called in the league, 1.9 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 | 24.0% |
| False Start | 12.4% |
| Defensive Holding | 8.8% |
| Defensive Pass Interference | 5.5% |
| Defensive Offside | 5.4% |
| Illegal Block Above the Waist | 4.5% |
| Illegal Use of Hands | 3.6% |
| Roughing the Passer | 3.5% |
| Unnecessary Roughness | 3.5% |
| Offensive Pass Interference | 3.4% |
Next, let’s look at what types of penalties are being called on the Redskins and their opponents:
The Redskins are still getting called for offensive holding 25% more than their opponents, although that dropped 11% this week since the Redskins had no offensive holding calls against them. They also did not have a false start penalty. Fabian Moreau and Josh Norman were both called for defensive holding, so, at least two of three problem areas saw improvement.
Lastly, which players are getting the penalty calls?
Three of the top five offenders are on the offensive line. Josh Norman has now worked his way into the top 5 because his defensive holding call. Poor coverage and penalties is not what the team is paying him the big bucks for.
Looking at calls by unit, the offense has 49% of the penalties with 31 calls, the defense second with 24 calls (38%) and special teams is last with 8 calls (13%).
Upcoming game: San Francisco averages 6.6 penalty calls a game versus the Redskins average of 8.5 calls.
I’ll be back next week with an analysis of week seven.
Data Sources: nflpenalties.com, nfl.com