In the hopes of not jinxing the Arizona Cardinals again, the positive subject of penalties was raised this week after the team’s 29-9 victory over the Bears resulted in only three penalties for 15 yards.
In fact, since the bad day in Green Bay in Week 6 when there were 13 for 100 yards, the next three games have totaled only nine for 59 yards and one delay of game infraction against the Chargers was done purposely by head coach Jonathan Gannon.
When Gannon was asked this week if he’s proud of the team for playing clean football, he said, “Yeah, I am. Let’s not talk about it because after the last time we talked about it, the crew got flag-happy in Green Bay.”
Of course, he then talked about it, adding, “It’s a good job of the coaches and our players. We educate them. They understand, and I think it starts with really how we practice. We practice, for the most part, the right way. You play how you practice so we try not to foul and hold and illegal contact — all the things that go into that, but they understand the value of penalties.
“So not to say it’s always going to be clean, and I know there’s bang-bang penalties, which I don’t really lose my mind over those. I lose my mind over decision making and especially pre-snap penalties. Those are the ones I think that you can control because it’s not another human making the judgment. The things that we can control you have to do a good job of controlling them.”
And they have. There have been very few pre-snap infractions and despite the day in Green Bay, the Cardinals are still tied with the Bengals for the fewest penalties in the NFL with 41. Their 359 yards lost is third-fewest behind the Chargers at 331 and the Bengals at 335.
Consider that in the eight games aside from the Packers, the Cardinals have been assessed only 28 penalties (3.5 per game) and 259 yards (32.4 per game).
There are only four other teams that have penalty totals in the 40s and all of them have played only eight games: Kansas City 42, L.A. Chargers 43, L.A. Rams 44 and San Francisco 45.
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