NFL Refs

NCAA and NFL Referee news

Week 4 – General Discussion

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Here is your weekly thread to discuss the games coming up this weekend.  We’ve got the game-by-game ref listing here — please help us fill out the schedule as you hear about which refs are working each game.

Once the games start, let us know what kind of interesting calls you see.

Comments

  7. A handful of other sites sometimes get upcoming information. Some include:

    NFL85 — Ed Hochuli’s site

    Behind the Football Stripes — A referee forum

    There may be others, but those are a few to get you started. If you find any other information about this weekend, please let us know.

  16. Darren Franczyk wrote:
    Can you please answer this question for me. While watching the Eagle v Dallas
    week 2. The Eagles committed a personal foul unnessary roughness was called on
    the Eagles it happened at 8:38 in the 3rd quarter. On the same play there was
    an offensive penalty. Here is the transcript from NFL.com PENALTY on
    PHI-58-T.Cole, Unnecessary Roughness, 15 yards, enforced at DAL 43 – No Play.
    Penalty on DAL-89-T.Curtis, False Start, superseded.

    Now last night against the bears the bears roughed the kicker and there was an
    illegal formantion penalty against the Eagles. (3:47) 6-S.Rocca punts 49 yards
    to CHI 30, Center-46-J.Dorenbos, fair catch by 23-D.Hester. Penalty on PHI,
    Illegal Formation, offsetting, enforced at PHI 21 – No Play. Penalty on
    CHI-33-C.Tillman, Roughing the Kicker, offsetting.

    How is it offsetting one week and not offsetting another week. Can you please
    explain. What I understood the rule to be was a personal foul superscedes a 5
    yd penalty. It didnot happen last night and it affected the outcome of
    the game.

  17. Darren,

    You obviously get the NFL’s 5vs15 rule. A 5 yard penalty is ignored if the other team commits a 15 yard penalty. I did not see the play last night, but the only thing I can assume is that ‘running into the kicker’ was called and not ‘roughing the kicker.’ Had it been roughing the kicker, the 5 vs. 15 rule would have kicked in, and there is no way a coach would have let the officials make the error of wiping the penalties.

  18. Darren e-mailed his question to Ed Hochuli, who responded in a great deal of detail. It really shows just how complex the rules can get. Also, I’m quite impressed with the amount of time that Mr. Hochuli took to explain the answer.

    Here is Ed’s response to Darren:

    ———————

    That is an excellent observation on your part, Darren. Frankly, I’m really surprised that you noticed. The NFL rules are very complicated — far more so than high school or college rules. This particular rule is called the “5 /15” rule. It’s really quite complex, but basically the rule is that when there is a 5 yard penalty by one team and a 15 yard penalty by the other team, the 15 yard penalty is enforced, and the five-year penalty is declined by rule (that’s what they meant by “superseded”). Therefore, in the Dallas game, a 15 yard penalty was enforced, and the five-year penalty was declined.

    There are two exceptions to the 5/15 rule. The first is that if there is a change of possession on the play, the rule does not apply, and the two penalties offset. That’s the reason that the penalties offset and the down was replayed in the Bears game. (The definition of “change of possession” gets very complicated on field goals, punts, kickoffs, and fourth-down plays on which the offense does not reach the line to gain, but I won’t go into that here).

    The other exception to the 5/15 rule is what’s called a “clean hands score.” If the defense commits a 5 yard penalty, and the offense scores with clean hands and then commits a personal foul after they’ve scored, the five-yard penalty is declined, and the 15 yard penalty is enforced in the kickoff. So for example, if the defense lines up offside, and the offense runs for a touchdown and then after the score, the offense commits a 15 yard penalty like taunting — the five-yard penalty is declined, and the offense kicks off from their own 15 yard line.

    I hope that makes some sense. I seldom go into that much detail with people about the rules, because as I said, they are extremely complicated, and for just about everything I say, there are always exceptions. However, your question so surprised me because very few people would even notice, that I thought I’d give you a more in-depth answer.

    All my best