Complaining about officiating is a weekly ritual for NFL fans. It’s an especially acute phenomenon for Detroit Lions fans, a programmed response based on far too many instances of being on the wrong end of the officiating hose.
But statistically speaking, the 2019 Detroit Lions were the most neutrally officiated team in the NFL. The Lions had the smallest discrepancy between penalties for/against and the smallest total penalty yardage difference of any of the 32 teams.
Detroit was assessed four fewer penalties than its opponents across the 16-game schedule. That tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the smallest range. The Lions netted 24 more yards than they were penalized, trailing only the 49ers (plus-10) for penalty yardage spread.
| Penalties | Penalty yards | |
| Lions | 113 | 937 |
| Opponents | 117 | 961 |
Even the Lions’ home/away split was almost perfectly even. Detroit was flagged 57 times at home and 56 on the road. Only the Cowboys and Texans joined Detroit at being within two total penalties of an even split.
Not all penalties, or the timing of those penalties, are equal, of course. Anyone who watched the officiating crew cleanly rob the Lions of a victory against the Green Bay Packers in Week 6 can tell you that. But on the whole, the Lions wound up having the most neutral officiating stats of any team in 2019.
All penalty data is courtesy of NFL Penalties.