The Bleergh Report – Regular season roundup

ALL HAIL BLEERGH.

In tribute to Bleergh, here’s the regular season’s best and worst penalties. There were 45,144 total plays this year.  Of those plays 3,868 times a flag was throw, and of those, 3,436 penalties were accepted.

Here are the best (in the eyes of Bleergh) single penalties of the season.  These are all DPI, in case you were wondering.

Team Player Yards
MIA M.Fitzpatrick 41
BUF P.Gaines 43
SF A.Exum 43
DET M.Ford 43
NO K.Crawley 45
WAS M.Nicholson 46
BUF P.Gaines 47
WAS J.Norman 47
HOU K.Jackson 47
CAR J.Bradberry 48
GB R.Greene 48
LA L.Joyner 48
OAK D.Rodgers-Cromartie 50
CAR D.Jackson 52
SEA B.McDougald 56

Shocked and saddened that the biggest penalty was only for 56 yards.

Here are the worst (in the eyes of Bleergh) penalties of the season.  This surprised me as well as I wasn’t expecting this number of penalties with so little yards.

Penalty yards Occurred
0 yards 23 times
1 yard 32 times
2 yards 34 times
3 yard2 31 times
4 yards 59 times
5 yards 1506 times

Here are the most penalized players by yards for the season.

Player Number of penalties Total yards
E.Apple 9 106
B.Skrine 7 107
M.Moses 14 108
J.Brown 15 110
T.Smith 14 110
B.Webb 8 113
R.Jensen 11 120
T.Hill 12 120
S.Nelson 9 121
J.Jones 11 123
J.Mills 10 123
K.Crawley 6 126
D.Jackson 9 131
P.Gaines 3 131
J.Jackson 15 145
M.Fitzpatrick 10 152

Now by number of penalties, some repeat offenders.  Again this is for the season.

Player Number of penalties Total yards
D.Dawkins 11 91
J.Jones 11 123
M.Pouncey 11 90
N.Lawson 11 84
R.Jensen 11 120
B.Hart 12 75
B.Parker 12 85
J.Davenport 12 85
T.Hill 12 120
J.Clowney 13 95
T.Williams 13 92
M.Moses 14 108
T.Smith 14 110
J.Brown 15 110
J.Jackson 15 145

There were 55 TDs and 7 field goals reversed by penalties.  Here are the penalties for TD’s with the biggest yardage that were nullified.  Bleergh like these.  There weren’t any fun field goal descriptions.

Yards gained Penalty yards Description Penalty
33 10 L.JACKSON LEFT TACKLE FOR 33 YARDS OFFENSIVE HOLDING
35 5 J.ROSEN PASS SHORT LEFT INTENDED FOR 11-L.FITZGERALD INTERCEPTED BY 39-E.JACKSON AT ARI 35. 39-E.JACKSON FOR 35 YARDS DEFENSIVE OFFSIDE
42 10 A.EKELER LEFT TACKLE FOR 42 YARDS. OFFENSIVE HOLDING
44 10 T.COLEMAN LEFT TACKLE FOR 44 YARDS ILLEGAL BLOCK ABOVE THE WAIST
46 10 M.STAFFORD PASS DEEP LEFT TO 19-K.GOLLADAY FOR 46 YARDS ILLEGAL USE OF HANDS
52 10 J.ADAMS UP THE MIDDLE FOR 52 YARDS, TOUCHDOWN NULLIFIED BY PENALTY OFFENSIVE HOLDING
57 10 D.JOHNSON UP THE MIDDLE FOR 57 YARDS OFFENSIVE HOLDING
62 10 D.HENRY RIGHT END FOR 62 YARDS OFFENSIVE HOLDING
75 10 C.WENTZ PASS DEEP MIDDLE TO 88-D.GOEDERT FOR 75 YARDS OFFENSIVE PASS INTERFERENCE
76 10 B.MAYFIELD PASS DEEP RIGHT TO 11-A.CALLAWAY FOR 76 YARDS OFFENSIVE HOLDING
89 10 C.KEENUM PASS SHORT MIDDLE INTENDED FOR 82-J.HEUERMAN INTERCEPTED BY 48-P.ONWUASOR AT BAL 11. 48-P.ONWUASOR FOR 89 YARDS ILLEGAL BLOCK ABOVE THE WAIST

Here’s the total number of penalties per team this season. I’ve bolded the highest and lowest in each column.

Team Penalties Called Penalties against Penalties declined Total  accepted penalty yards Average yards per penalty
ARIZONA 120 100 20 781 7.81
ATLANTA 121 101 20 899 8.90
BALTIMORE 124 116 8 940 8.10
BUFFALO 129 115 14 977 8.50
CAROLINA 105 92 13 818 8.89
CHICAGO 108 97 11 796 8.21
CINCINNATI 126 114 12 957 8.39
CLEVELAND 130 112 18 894 7.98
DALLAS 111 104 7 885 8.51
DENVER 147 125 22 985 7.88
DETROIT 108 93 15 837 9.00
GREEN BAY 126 108 18 937 8.68
HOUSTON 114 104 10 782 7.52
INDIANAPOLIS 135 120 15 953 7.94
JACKSONVILLE 134 120 14 1107 9.23
KANSAS CITY 157 137 20 1152 8.41
LOS ANGELES CHARGERS 109 96 13 878 9.15
LOS ANGELES RAMS 113 111 2 967 8.56
MIAMI 132 108 24 978 9.06
MINNESOTA 105 92 13 779 8.47
NEW ENGLAND 106 93 13 744 8.00
NEW ORLEANS 106 94 12 939 9.99
NEW YORK GIANTS 125 113 12 936 8.28
NEW YORK JETS 125 114 11 948 8.32
OAKLAND 124 110 14 965 8.77
PHILADELPHIA 128 110 18 1011 9.19
PITTSBURGH 109 100 9 852 8.52
SAN FRANCISCO 118 110 8 954 8.67
SEATTLE 127 111 16 972 8.76
TAMPA BAY 131 117 14 975 8.33
TENNESSEE 93 82 11 727 8.87
WASHINGTON 121 115 6 1008 8.77

I do find it interesting that with the range in the of number of penalties per team, that the average penalty yardage by team is right around the league average of 8.5 yards.

Challenges

These are all over the place.  Some team don’t challenge at all( ATL,LAC), others, challenge and consistently lose(BUF,PIT), others challenge and do well(JAX).

Team Challenges  Call reversed
ARIZONA 3 0
ATLANTA 1 0
BALTIMORE 6 3
BUFFALO 6 0
CAROLINA 7 4
CHICAGO 3 0
CINCINNATI 6 3
CLEVELAND 4 3
DALLAS 5 2
DENVER 7 2
DETROIT 7 3
GREEN BAY 3 1
HOUSTON 4 2
INDIANAPOLIS 4 2
JACKSONVILLE 8 7
KANSAS CITY 5 3
LOS ANGELES CHARGERS 1 0
LOS ANGELES RAMS 7 3
MIAMI 3 0
MINNESOTA 5 1
NEW ENGLAND 5 2
NEW ORLEANS 7 3
NEW YORK GIANTS 5 2
NEW YORK JETS 2 2
OAKLAND* 7 3
PHILADELPHIA 6 3
PITTSBURGH 5 0
SAN FRANCISCO 6 2
SEATTLE 5 4
TAMPA BAY 5 1
TENNESSEE 5 0
WASHINGTON 3 2

*special note that Chucky tried to challenge a play inside of the last 2 minutes of a game.  This lead to a penalty, which pleases Bleergh.

Now that I’m one with these spreadsheets, I’ll try to do these weekly for the next regular season, assuming I can find the play by play data for download.  The lack of data has been the holdup for some of these.  There were a few weeks where I did this from the NFL game sheets.  While it’s not too bad to do for the playoffs with just a few games, there’s no way I’m do that for any given regular season week.  I’m way too lazy for that.

BLEERGH will now rest until August, at which time planning will begin on how to improve on last years work.

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Game Time Decision
Recovering lurker; jack of all trades, master of none; Canukian; not as funny as he thinks he is. Funny, but not funny ha-ha
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nomonkeyfun

I’m actually surprised there aren’t more really short penalties. If you’re a defense on a goal line stand, is there any point in not trying to time the snap or commit a hold/dpi?

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

The awarding of an automatic first down on some defensive penalties can kill you, also if it is an early down and it gets moved closer the offense has more options.

Redshirt

Hold/DPI grants Auto 1st Down. Plus if you repeatedly go offsides on 3rd down and stop them, I think Palpably Unfair Act may kick in, probably with awarding automatic first down.

ballsofsteelandfury

LOVE these! I think the data shows that there are way too many stupid penalties.

LemonJello

Is the Lesser Footy Penalty god also Bleergh? Or is he known as something else since they use those cute little cards instead of flags?

nomonkeyfun

I believe that in ‘Murrica and Canadia, he is known as James, but in the rest of the world he is still Bleergh, but looks nothing like the North American version of Bleergh.

Also, the Salt Lake City MLS is attempting to change the name to the Spanish translation of Bleergh, you know, for authenticity.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

The rule book is about a quarter of the size; that helps.

Sharkbait

Looking forward to this next season!