Comprehensive penalty analysis for 2015

[Childress]

I worked hard today to analyze this year's CFL stats to evaluate the season so far. There are several encouraging stats, but penalties are the major negative.

I went on to look at who is the head referee in games with the most penalties which will be interesting going forward.

I also looked at which penalties are getting called more this year.

Check it out: http://www.cflhorsemen.ca/stats.html

[TheLionKing]

Very interesting. Who would have thought Andre Proulx and his crew called the least penalties...... but it's still early.

[Toppy Vann]

Great analysis ... quite amazed.

I was going to comment on how much I like Pratt and Suits on TSN and they covered this. Pratt seems so positive CFL and he and Suitor do a good back and forth.
As much as most of the TSN videos won't load I'm batting 100% with Pratt.

Pratt says he wants to watch Lions and Tiger Cats not Zebras.

Suitor's nut shell take on this. In 12 games over 300 penalties, 96 of which were illegal procedure and offsides. Preventable as Childress notes.

The teams have to get the Preventables under control as fans focusing on flags is not good for the gate or TV.

[sj-roc]

Very interesting. Who would have thought Andre Proulx and his crew called the least penalties...... but it's still early.

There are two kinds of bad officiating. There's throwing too many nothing flags, and there's missing the legit infractions. So maybe it's because he's missed a lot of RTP and holding calls?

[almo89]

Great analysis ... quite amazed.

I was going to comment on how much I like Pratt and Suits on TSN and they covered this. Pratt seems so positive CFL and he and Suitor do a good back and forth.
As much as most of the TSN videos won't load I'm batting 100% with Pratt.

Pratt says he wants to watch Lions and Tiger Cats not Zebras.

Suitor's nut shell take on this. In 12 games over 300 penalties, 96 of which were illegal procedure and offsides. Preventable as Childress notes.

The teams have to get the Preventables under control as fans focusing on flags is not good for the gate or TV.

Pratt gets a lot of flack for his style of stirring it up. I've listened to him for years and I can tell he's truly an old school CFL fan and will always try to promote it on his shows. Due to station commitments, of course he has to give the Canucks the spot light. But when I hear him talk about the Lions and the CFL, I can hear the passion.

[Big Time]

I agree that penalties like offside are preventable. However for me it's not as simple as saying these PI penalties are preventable and up to the players to adjust. When the league announced its new rules for PI in the off season, I posted on this forum how much I HATED this change.

My quote from the new Rules thread:

http://lionbackers.com/bc_lions/viewtop ... 47#p356445

— Another rule brought from the NFL will ban illegal contact on an offensive player further than five yards downfield from the line of scrimmage. Receivers and defenders engage in trench warfare currently, which could result in a penalty on every play if past practice continues.


Oh boy. HATE HATE HATE this change. Any change that allows the CFL officials to make more bad calls is going to vastly hurt the game. The CFL officials are by and large horrible and their calls on pass interference are probably the worst of any area of the game. Making it easier to call PI by removing some of the subjectivity is only going to make it worse. Watch for PI calls to increase x100 next year. I have a feeling this rule change is going to be one of the most talked about rule change since they allowed PI to be challenged. This is not a good thing.

Kind of sounds like what's going on right now, doesn't it? My principle reason was that it would encourage more flags to be thrown, and it would lead to a never ending parade of PI calls and challenges. So far, that appears to be the case. The problem as always comes down to inconsistency. While it's on the players to play within the rules, the problem is I have no idea what constitutes PI anymore. On any given play they could call PI for nothing and everything. The DB's are just as confused, as what were previously great defensive plays get cheap flags thrown that ruin defensive stops, while other great plays that look like massive interference go unpenalized. Quite frankly, giving the officials more leeway to throw PI flags was a recipe for disaster. I suspect what will happen is that the officials who have been flag happy will eventually just default back to letting things go, and this more than anything the players do, will result in the PI calls being less noticeable.

As for other preventable flags, the roughing the pass penalties are a flat out mess. I understand and agree that the QB needs to be protected, but some of the calls I saw last week on lovetaps to Kevin Glenn were atrocious. It appears you can't even breathe on a QB without getting a flag. The league badly needs to fix this so that players who are following through or barely even touching a QB don't get flagged.

Another option for PI and roughing the passer calls would be to not make these automatic first down penalties. That would help too.

[almo89]

Even with all the flags, it seems like the games themselves are more entertaining. There seems to be more scoring and way less 2 and outs. I hate sitting through a game where both teams are going through 2 and outs over and over again. So maybe the new rules are working and there needs to be time to adjust?

[DanoT]

Even with all the flags, it seems like the games themselves are more entertaining. There seems to be more scoring and way less 2 and outs. I hate sitting through a game where both teams are going through 2 and outs over and over again. So maybe the new rules are working and there needs to be time to adjust?

I agree. The clutch and grab football that the DBs were playing in the past was too disruptive and bad for the game. DBs and LBs will learn to be better cover guys or they will be replaced by someone who is.

[pennw]

Even with all the flags, it seems like the games themselves are more entertaining. There seems to be more scoring and way less 2 and outs. I hate sitting through a game where both teams are going through 2 and outs over and over again. So maybe the new rules are working and there needs to be time to adjust?

I agree. The clutch and grab football that the DBs were playing in the past was too disruptive and bad for the game. DBs and LBs will learn to be better cover guys or they will be replaced by someone who is.

I agree too Dano , on the excessive holding DBs did . What I hated far more than excessive numbers of penalties called , was the random , arbitrary way PI was previously called . Refs proved many times over they could not call PI fairly before . Sometimes the minorest touch would draw it , next time a receiver being mauled would not . Seemed to depend more on the mood of the ref and who he was mad at that influenced what constituted PI . Subjectivity needed to be taken out of it, either it's PI or it's not according to the same standard every time , not depending on how a ref feels . If penalties are to be reduced , it should come from somewhere else . There were some good examples last week where some penalties could have been cut out. Certain OC calls come to mind.

[pennw]

Very interesting. Who would have thought Andre Proulx and his crew called the least penalties...... but it's still early.

I frequently got the impression that Andre Proulx was very hot under the collar . You could hear it the way he took deep breaths and strongly pronounced words that he was mad and seemd to be taking it out on one team . The calls would go one way far to much with him and that may account for him calling less penalties . He did not call many on the other Team , so less calls . If he called less penalties , it's interesting that he seems to be the most disliked ref on most fan forums .

Another interesting stat would be see if any refs have a tendency to call more penalties on certain teams .

[Hambone]

Very interesting. Who would have thought Andre Proulx and his crew called the least penalties...... but it's still early.

I frequently got the impression that Andre Proulx was very hot under the collar . You could hear it the way he took deep breaths and strongly pronounced words that he was mad and seemd to be taking it out on one team . The calls would go one way far to much with him and that may account for him calling less penalties . He did not call many on the other Team , so less calls . If he called less penalties , it's interesting that he seems to be the most disliked ref on most fan forums .

Another interesting stat would be see if any refs have a tendency to call more penalties on certain teams .

Head referees are often unfairly targeted when it comes to penalties. They are responsible for things that happen in the backfield. So yes they are the one tossing the hanky for roughing the passer, delay of game, sometimes procedure, holding and other transgressions they can detect in the trenches. For just about anything else they are merely the messenger.

[Hambone]

Breakdown of penalties called (accepted and/or declined) on BC to date:

Holding - 2 (Foster both times)
Holding on a return - 1
Illegal Contact on a receiver - 5 (Yell twice)
Illegal Interference - General - 1 (Burnham)
Illegal interference - Downfield - 1 (Burnham)
Illegal Punt - 1
No Yards - 2
Objectionable Conduct - 2
Offensive Pass Interference - 1
Offside Defence - 4 (Johnson twice)
Offside Offence - 2
Offside on KO - 1
Procedure - 3
Unnecessary Roughness - Clipping - 1
Unnecessary Roughness - General -1
Unnecessary Roughness - Roughing the Passer - 2

[dupsdell1]

In 2004 the cfl averaged 24 penalties a game but that did not stop the highest tsn/cbc ratings in years the league almost averaging 30,000 a game , the western final getting 55,000 the eastern final getting 53,000 and the grey cup sold out in Ottawa of 52,000 , so why is this any different. ?????

[B.C.FAN]

The penalties are on the players. It's up to them to clean it up. Players can't be jumping offside. Officials have to call those penalties. My only criticism of the officials would be to keep their flags in their pockets on kick returns unless a holding penalty is serious enough to affect the play. Too many big returns have been wiped out by questionable calls away from the play.

[dupsdell1]

The penalties are on the players. It's up to them to clean it up. Players can't be jumping offside. Officials have to call those penalties. My only criticism of the officials would be to keep their flags in their pockets on kick returns unless a holding penalty is serious enough to affect the play. Too many big returns have been wiped out by questionable calls away from the play.

You are so right that is they did that in 2004 . I agree on the kick off returns but the return tonight was a big time penalty.