Penalties - Players/Coach Responsabilities - Week 4 Update

[Burgold]

I think some you put on coaching, some you put on the players, but there were a few that you put on the refs. They seemed determined to turn the game around, ignoring blatant personal fouls by Miami and calling some ticky tacks on us.

[clskinsfan]

I have no idea how I missed this thread. Nice work OP.

 

As far as penalties go, being a coach I like to think its always on the players ...But its not. It's on the entire team. You drill your lines not to jump. You drill your defense not to hit the QB once the ball is away. You teach your OL to hold the jersey inside the shoulder pads. (unless you are going to get your QB killed) ETC ETC. But it is up to the player to come through on game day. Mental lapses happen less often when you practice to prevent them. But they will still happen.

[SpacePenguin]

I think some you put on coaching, some you put on the players, but there were a few that you put on the refs. They seemed determined to turn the game around, ignoring blatant personal fouls by Miami and calling some ticky tacks on us.

I swear the game was lost when:

Suh twisted Moses's helmet so hard it was on sideways, and then the flag was for a pick play (which other teams do ALL the time), I was so pissy.

Then, when the backup RT came in because Moses was blinded from the missed penalty, and they got him for holding, I just started laughing.

Then there was 2 more consecutive penalties and I just shrugged and decided that there is no way to beat the Dolphins AND Vegas.

Then, the punt return happened and I was over it. Whatever.

[tomwvr]

Suh also kicked Almo in the head when he was on the ground. I hope the cheater gets a 3-4 game suspension and a huge fine. He needs to be removed from the league - they don't need openly dirty players out there

[TD_washingtonredskins]

I think it's about 50/50. As someone mentioned above, inferior players will have to occasionally commit penalties to avoid giving up a 70 yard TD or a QB sack.

 

But, the self-control types I put on the coaching staff. If a player does whatever the hell he wants without worrying about repercussions, then that's on the coaches. Baker's late hit, Moses blocking seconds after the whistle and into the bench area, etc. are examples of those.

 

Rant...I agree that I was in shock when even Dan Fouts thought we were about to get a major break after that third down completion to Garcon. All we saw was an illegal hands to the face play yet they didn't call it. Then, to make it worse, they flagged us for one of the most ticky-tacky OPIs I've seen. Without that call, we don't reel off 3-4 straight penalties backing us up from the 20 to the 45 or 50.

[Wildbunny]

Trent Murphy is one of the worst picks we've ever made. The guy is below mediocre. Get him out!

How is that related to this thread? Guy wasn't flagged. Please get your hate elsewhere.

[PokerPacker]

And here I thought the blame would fall entirely on Brunell.

[FrFan]

The 2 teams that once finished 1 and 2 during the season also finished 1 and 2 on the most penalized teams list.

Seagulls and Broncos, Dick Sherman being the N°1 offender.

The Most and Least Penalized Teams in the NFL

"In conclusion, less penalized teams tend to have more success in the regular season, but when playoff time rolls...forget it."

[Thinking Skins]

I think it all goes down to type of penalty. Some things like false starts are completely on the player and he should be dealt with. Other things like delay of game are mostly on the coaches, maybe for a player for not watching the clock, but mostly on the coaches for getting plays in.

But then there are things like personal fouls and pass interference. Those sound like "we should never do those things" but part of being a physical team is realizing that you'll occasionally get called for physical play like this. So that goes into the coaching style more than the player.

Then there are things like offensive holding. There's a saying that holding takes place on every play so I don't really know how to judge this one. But I want my players to protect the QB. And if its like Orakpo always complained about, not getting called on holds, then did it really happen? Like, if an OT holds on 10 plays, but is only called on one of them, do you fault him for the one play or all 10 or the other 9?

[RedBeast]

It all Zorns fault. He got us into this mess

[Thinking Skins]

Per thesubmittedone's request, I decided to copy my post from the twitter thread into this one:

You also have to look at where the penalties came from. And I will admit that tehy were deflating, drive killing penalties....so bad that I had to play a game of madden simulaneously to keep me from cursing.

But lets analyze these penalties

1. Penalty on Trent Williams: False Start, 5 yards (no play)

2. Kirk Cousins pass complete short left to Pierre Garcon for 14 yards. Penalty on Pierre Garcon: Offensive Pass Interference, 10 yards (no play)

3. Alfred Morris right guard for 14 yards (tackle by Reshad Jones). Penalty on Jordan Reed: Offensive Holding, 10 yards

4. Ryan Tannehill pass complete short right to Greg Jennings for 11 yards. Penalty on Chris Baker: Roughing the Passer, 15 yards

5. Ryan Tannehill pass complete short right to Kenny Stills for 12 yards (tackle by David Amerson). Penalty on Chris Culliver: Illegal Use of Hands (Declined)

6. Penalty on Morgan Moses: False Start, 5 yards (no play)

7. Penalty on Kirk Cousins: Delay of Game, 5 yards (no play)

8. Kirk Cousins pass complete short right to Pierre Garcon for 9 yards (tackle by Jelani Jenkins and Walt Aikens). Penalty on Jordan Reed: Offensive Pass Interference, 9 yards (no play)

9. Kirk Cousins pass complete short left to Chris Thompson for 7 yards (tackle by Jelani Jenkins). Penalty on Ty Nsekhe: Offensive Holding, 10 yards (no play)

10. Ryan Tannehill pass incomplete short left intended for Jordan Cameron (defended by Keenan Robinson). Penalty on Keenan Robinson: Defensive Pass Interference, 3 yards (no play)

11. Alfred Morris left tackle for 4 yards (tackle by Jelani Jenkins and Zach Vigil). Penalty on Derek Carrier: Offensive Holding, 10 yards (no play)

12. Alfred Morris right end for 2 yards (tackle by Derrick Shelby and Brent Grimes). Penalty on Morgan Moses: Personal Foul, 6 yards

13. Matt Jones right end for 9 yards (tackle by Earl Mitchell). Penalty on Morgan Moses: Offensive Holding (Declined), Penalty on WAS: Illegal Formation (Declined)

So breaking it down by player we have

Trent WIlliams: 1

Pierre Garcon: 1

Jordan Reed: 2

Chris Baker: 1

Chris Culliver: 1

Morgan Moses: 3

Kirk Cousins: 1

Ty Nsekhe: 1

Keenan Robinson: 1

Derek Carrier: 1

5 (Moses, Nsekhe, Carrier) of the penalties were against new starters on our team, who are probably still making adjustments to the game.

3 (Baker, Culliver, Robinson) of the penalties were against our defense, and could be seen as strategic in terms of being more physical

2 (Reed, Garcon) of the penalties were offensive pass interference which can go either way

So we're really left with three penalties that I'm upset about - the Trent Williams false start, the Kirk Cousins delay of game, and the Jordan Reed holding call. Sure two of these three could have been done better with coaching, but I think the more important thing is that we saw how injuries and the "rebuild" will hurt us. Moses didn't play a bad game, but he's a young guy who got some calls against him. He did get suckerpunched by Suh as well.

You look at the plays that were taken back and its just sad how much it hurt us, but it is inspiring to see that we were able to at least look competent yesterday.

[MartinC]

Trent Murphy is one of the worst picks we've ever made.  The guy is below mediocre.  Get him out!

 

Wildbunny put a lot of work into his OP. Your very welcome to contribute to this thread but then please do him the courtesy of making your posts at least somewhat relevant to the topic being discussed.

[Wildbunny]

Nice reporting ThinkingSkins.

 

Still thinking that the roughing the passer on Chris Baker was a tough call. So I don't want to put any blame at all on this. We still had to deal with it.

 

Holdings were all results of our Right Side of the OL, and we were starting 1 rookie (Scherff) and 1 2nd year player with nearly no game experience (Moses). So, I'm not that mad against those penalties. Sure they cost, but they are coachable, and we can bet Coach Callahan will put a special emphasis on it the upcoming week. We'll have to check next week if some players have improved or not. But let's also not forget that our Right Side was facing Suh and Wake that are two great DLers.

 

The panlties that infuriates me the most in the end is the one from Culliver. Totally stupid, useless, facemask that cost usually. Obviously it was declined, but boy that looked like rookie mistake.

 

Williams, well, we're being used to him making one or two penalties a game. I'll doubt it'll improve somehow, but the guy seems to have some concentrations problems here and there.

 

Lastly, I absolutely loved the Personal Foul against Moses. Sure it hurts, but that's the kind of nastiness I want to see from my OL. If only he can keep his defender Inbounds, it'll be fine, and our RB will love that.

[Wildbunny]

So, Week two is now in the books. And at first I haven't noticed any real stupid dumb penalties.

 

Still we had 8 penalties. Including 3 Holdings from our O, two comings from Reed. Which makes 3 since the beginning of the season for Reed. He should work on it quite a bit and learn. We knew he wasn't the best blocker but it might becomes a real concern down the road if he doesn't cut it.

Lauvao was chargee of one, on the Kirk Cousins' scramble. He was clearly beaten and hadn't much choice to do it or see his QB killed.

There was also

- 1 Illegal use of hands from Breeland.

- 1 Illegal block above the waist from Amerson that was offset with an illegal formation.

- 1 Defensive Offside from Kerrigan. Bummer!

- 1 False Start from Lauvao, him again.

- 1 Offensive Holding from Terrence Plummer on a Punt Return. That was a stupid one to get, as it can put you in tough situation. And we nearly were as our O started from the 9, but hopefully managed to walk its way to the 44 before punting.

 

Also, the good part, is that I noted 2 neutral zone infractions from the Rams DL. That penalty happens if a DL cross the LOS and then the Offense start the move before the snap in order to be called. If the OL doesn't move, there's no penalty, though an offside can be called if the ball is snapped. (which happened to Kerrigan). I suspect that the fact it happened twice might be a result of the coaching  telling your guys to do the false start to get a flag on the D.

 

As a whole, not a bad game from our guys, lots of discipline. A few mistakes here and there, but a rather clean game from everyone. I'll have to keep an eye on Reed, he's holding way too much. Other DLs will notice it, and will put him in tough situation if it's not taken care from now.

[Wildbunny]

Haven't got time to summarize last week penalties, so I'll just sum it up here, and we'll be able to have a breakdown after tonight's game since we'll have 25% of the season in the books.

 

So against the Giants we had:

- 1 Illegal Contact by Culliver.

- 1 Delay of Game for Cousins.

- 2 Offensive Pass Interference from Reed and Crowder.

- 1 Defensive Holding from Plummer.

- 1 Offensive Holding on Licht.

- 1 Unnecessary Roughness on Jeron Johnson

- 1 Player Out of Bounds for Breeland that was offset with a running into the Kicker.

 

What to look for tonight in terms of penalties?

The numbers/yards of each we're getting.

If there's any stupid penalties drawn here and there.

If Reed's cutting down on some of them.

[goskins10]

Here is a little different perspective. Penalties in general have gone up by 2 penalties per team per game over just the last 3 years. We (meaning the league) are currently on a record pace for penalties:

 

 

Yr    Total  Total/team/gm Accepted  Acc/team/gm Declined Offsetting

2012 3809       7.4                3319         6.5                406         84

2013 3636       7.1                3245         6.3                362         29

2014 4248       8.3                3526         6.9                554        168

2015* 913       9.5                 773          8.1                116         24

2015**4869    9.5                4123          8.1                619       128

*Thru 3 games          

**Extrapolated for the entire season        

 

One of the results of this is that the last 3 sets of Super Bowl teams were among the very worst in penalties - Team (ranking 32 is worst):

 

2014 - Seattle (32) - NE (27) 

2013 - Seattle (32) - Denver (28)

2012 - Baltimore (31) - SF (26) 

 

At least some of our penalty problem are due to more penalties called. I believe it's referee incompetence. I am not saying conspiracy by any means. They suck equally across the league.

 

Just something to consider.

[PCS]

Time to see if the Redskins can find a way to sew the flags to the refs pockets.

[httrcirca87]

gotta get TD's. These FGs are gonna come back to haunt us

[Wildbunny]

Time to see if the Redskins can find a way to sew the flags to the refs pockets.

 

Not likely so far...

[Wildbunny]

With 25% of the season being in the history books, I guess it's time to make a point as of our situation regarding penalties. I'm not regarding the fact that they were legit or not, just taking into account that they were called.

 

During week 4 we've been flagged 10 times for 110 yards.

- 1 Illegal Formation for Ryan Grant

- 1 Clipping for Morgan Moses

- 1 Illegal Touch Pass for Jordan Reed (declined)

- 1 Illegal Contact on Goldson

- 2 Offensive Holding for Moses (declined), and Scherff (Offset with Defensive Holding from PHI)

- 1 Unnecessary Roughness on Quinton Dunbar

- 2 Unnecessary Roughness on T. Robinson

- 1 Facemask for Garcon

- 1 Ineligible Downfield Pass against T. Williams

- 1 Roughing the Passer on Jean-Francois

- 1 Illegal Use of Hands for Breeland.

 

That was a long list of penalties.

 

So after 4 Weeks, we've been flagged as a whole:

14 flags thrown against the Dolphins. (3 were declined)

8 against the Rams. (1 was declined)

8 against the Giants. (1 was offset)

13 against the Eagles. (2 declined and one offset)

Total: 43 flags through 4 games.

 

Nearly 11 penalties a game. Which is quite high as I tend to think that any game with8/10 penalties is average, and below 5 is excellent. Still, we're 27th in league with the most committed penalties (35 removing those offset and declined). Bills being last 47 penalties (including 17 against NYG, which hurts) and the Cards being 1st with only 20 penalties committed. And we've surrendered 309 yards with those penalties which is 8.82 yards average for each penalty.

 

As a whole, there was 962 penalties accepted through the league, which put an average 30.0625 flags for each team. 15.27 penalties each game, and thus 7.5 penalty by each team on any game as an average. We're above it, but not that much.

 

Our most penalized player so far is Jordan Reed with 6. Then Moses with 5 and Breeland with 3. Jordan Reed has effectively got flag during each game, as well as Breeland that got flag in every game he played (he was suspended during Week 1). We also had 24 different players flagged, nearly half of the roster (note: two of them have been cut: Plummer and Amerson).

The penalty we've committed the most is:

- Offensive Holding: 11.

Then it's Unnecessary Roughness: 5 and Offensive Pass Interference: 4

 

Despite that huge number of flags, there's some hope in them.

Offensive Holding is a trend going down since Week 3. With 8 penalties called during Week 1 and 2, we can say that the coaching staff really put an emphasis on those kind of penalties. Sure a few of them remains, but the work seems to be showing. Let's keep the good work here.

No False start since Week 3. That's a good thing for our OL that is doing some good work regarding penalties. I was a bit scared about Scherff after we drafted him, but kid is doing great.

 

Another point to note is that we only have been flagged for 1 Defensive Pass Interference and that was in game 1 against Robinson. That in itself is pretty impressive considering the turn over we had on the secondary, all the youngsters we're playing are doing a good job here.

I wish I could had the same statement regarding Offensive Pass Interference side. We had 2 in week 1, and 2 in week 3. So we'll have to wait a little bit more to see if we're doing good or not.

 

Other than that we're seeing lots of stupid penalties (player out of bounds, illegal formation, and so on...). We're having penalties that are often the result tough football (Unnecessary Roughness, Roughing the Passer). But I don't think there's a real trend as us being penalty happy. As a whole we're doing rather good, even if we could cut on the number as a whole, it does not show a real problem on the team as a whole.

 

Except, that we seem to makes penalties at the dumbest moments (See Dolphins), on most crucial play we're likely to commit one. Which leads me to think that we tend to lose our self-control on some occasions when we shouldn't. That is the part we should work for and improve. We've got talent, skills, athletics, we have to get the mental aspect of the game ready now.

[ThomasRoane]

The problem for the coaches is that the penalties are spread around.  If it was one or two players you could just bench him.  I think there's a different attitude about it now though.  Trent Williams was really hard on himself for his penalty.  I think players will start to police that up.  The locker room will help as the peers start to exert pressure on the young guys.

[Wildbunny]

I don't see it as a huge problem if penalties are spread around. Everyone can do one for many reasons. Some might get mistakenly flagged by the Refs, just like Trenton Robinson.

I am more concerned by the nature itself of some penalties that tells me that some are not focused enough in the game. But also, those same penalties are often product of young players getting up to NFL speed and should go away as time goes by and players grow. Still, if they don't, yeah, at some point, you have to bench the guy if that's the only way to do it. That is a subject that would be worth debating.

Two of our more flagged players are also doing great so far: Jordan Reed and Morgan Moses. Reed got hurt, so the problem solves itself, but should it be worth benching Moses if he keeps on with penalties? I would put Breeland in this category as well, except he wasn't that great so far.