Hold On – 2021 Preview
September 7, 2021
By Noonefromtampa
For any who are unfamiliar, Hold On is our weekly column devoted to Bon Jovi looking at penalties committed by the Washington Football Team and league wide trends on penalties.
This year the league is more committed to removing taunting from the game, so beginning this season expect the official to be stricter on these calls. The league has even issued fines for actions not penalized in the game. Wide receiver James Proche II of the Baltimore Ravens was fined $4,567 for unsportsmanlike conduct after his TD catch in last week’s preseason game against Washington. His teammate Tylan Wallace, who was flagged for his own TD celebration, wasn’t fined. Inconsistency seems to be one of the watchwords of NFL administration these days, so it will be interesting to see what happens the first few games of the season.
2020 Washington Penalty Information
Last season WFT ranked 16th overall in penalties and 21st in yards lost to penalties, which are decent numbers but ones on which the team can improve. The team breakdown by unit was 44 accepted calls on the defense, 33 on offense and 11 on special teams.
The leading defensive players committing penalties were:
- Montez Sweat with 10
- Jimmy Moreland with 5
- Daron Payne with 4
- Chase Young with 3
- Kendall Fuller with 3
The leading offensive players committing penalties were:
- Offense with 7 (delay of game)
- Morgan Moses with 5
- Logan Thomas with 4
- Chase Roullier with 3
- Terry McLaurin with 3
- Brandon Scherff with 3
One thing that immediately stands out is that two players responsible for 10 penalties are no longer with the team, Morgan Moses and Jimmy Moreland.
Montez Sweat’s penalty issues were mainly offsides (4) and neutral zone infractions (3). Reducing those mental mistakes would also go a long way to improving the overall penalty statistical numbers.
The other mental aspect to improve on would be reducing the delay of game penalties. The average league-wide last season for all teams was 3.8, so Washington was almost double that norm. Incredibly, five teams had only 1 delay of game last season: Atlanta, Kansas City, New England, San Francisco, and Tampa Bay.
As a team, Washington had 13 false starts, which seems like a lot, but the team average across the league was 16.2. Washington is slightly under the average. The best team in the league was New England which only had 6 false starts.
Another area that has been an issue in the past has been offensive holding. Washington committed 13 of these infractions last season. The league average per team was 14.9 with Atlanta being the best with 8 penalties. With the offensive line turnover, it bears watching to see how many times this is called against Washington early in the season.
As in past seasons, Hold On will be published weekly and will look at the penalties from the past game as well as team trends during the season.
Hail to the soon to be named Washington Football Team, beat the San Diego Los Angeles Chargers! Damn, we do need a new name sooner than later.