Tag: penalty yards

Penalty-free football helped the Saints take care of business against the Bears

Penalty-free football helped the Saints take care of business against the Bears. Everything didn’t go according to plan, but they didn’t hurt themselves with fouls:

Penalty-free football helped the New Orleans Saints take care of business against the Chicago Bears on Sunday. That’s not to say everything went according to plan, but they didn’t hurt themselves with fouls while giving free yardage to the opposing squad.

That’s progress. The Saints went into Week 9 with a league-leading 513 penalty yards, but they ended the afternoon with a single foul, yielding 5 yards for a false start on tight end Juwan Johnson. The Bears were penalized 8 times for 71 yards by referee Ron Torbert and his officiating crew.

And things look even better when you widen the lens. The Saints have been penalized 12 times in their last three games, but eight of those infractions came last week against the Indianapolis Colts. And half of those penalties were for false starts on Johnson, center Erik McCoy, left tackle Andrus Peat, and left guard Max Garcia. That game’s referee crew, led by Craig Wrolstad, has thrown more penalty flags for false starts (15) than any other foul this season.

Hopefully this can start a positive trend for New Orleans. Playing games with fewer penalties leads to more efficient drives, more first down conversions, and more scoring — all things that are conducive to winning the day. Playing smarter and keeping hands clean is going to help this team get where they want to go.

One player in particular deserves some credit for cutting down on his penalties. Cornerback Paulson Adebo was fouled early and often this season, drawing four penalties for defensive pass interference and two flags for defensive holding in his first four games. But he hasn’t been fouled in either of the last two games while making a positive impact with multiple turnovers in recent weeks. If Adebo can avoid those penalties moving forward while continuing to take the ball away and hold up in coverage, the Saints secondary suddenly looks even more formidable. Sunday’s win over the Bears is the next step towards that goal.

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8 Saints players led the team in penalties in 2022

The New Orleans Saints deserve some credit for cleaning up after last year’s sloppy start. But these 8 Saints players led the team in penalties in 2022:

Penalties were an early problem for the New Orleans Saints in 2022, but they deserve some credit for cleaning it up. After drawing 34 fouls in their first four weeks, an average of 8.5 penalties per game, Dennis Allen’s team was fouled 8 or more times just twice through the rest of their schedule — taking 8 penalties for 49 yards and 10 fouls for 74 yards in road losses to the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers. They posted 6 or fewer penalties in every other game.

In the end, New Orleans ranked 16th around the league with 99 penalties for 841 yards (a year ago, they finished at 23rd with 98 fouls for 811 yards). So who led the team in fouls? Are there problematic areas and trends that can be worked on? Here’s the list of players who drew four or more flags in 2022:

Referee Brad Allen’s crew assigned to officiate Saints-Bills game

Referee Brad Allen’s crew assigned to officiate Thanksgiving Saints-Bills game:

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Eighth-year referee Brad Allen and his crew will work Thursday night’s game between the New Orleans Saints and the Buffalo Bills, NFL officiating announced Monday. The Saints are 4-2 in games Allen has officiated, most recently beating the Atlanta Falcons 24-9 in Week 11 last season. Buffalo is 4-4 in games he was worked.

Allen’s crew has averaged the third-fewest penalty flags per game this season (11.56) and the fifth-fewest penalty yards (102.67), with more penalties going against the visiting team (6.67) than the home team (4.89) on average each week. Most of their attention has focused on the offensive line, with 19 holding fouls and 16 false starts flagged this season. The Bills have drawn 75 fouls for 661 penalty yards in 10 games this season while the Saints have been flagged 61 times for 510 yards through 10 games.

It’s been a popular narrative that these trends will quickly reverse given the Saints’ ugly history with officiating, but the Bills have been so much sloppier this year that it could make a difference. New Orleans collected three flags for 25 penalty yards in last week’s game after drawing 19 fouls through the two previous weeks, so maybe they’ve turned a corner.

Whatever the case, at the end of the day they’ll have to be on top of their game against a good opponent. The Saints can’t afford more miscues, dropped passes, or botched blocking assignments. Sean Payton has to prove he can keep his offense competitive despite the injuries they’ve racked up.

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NFL assigns referee John Hussey to work Saints-Bucs in prime time

The NFL assigned veteran referee John Hussey to officiate Week 9’s prime time game between the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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Veteran NFL referee John Hussey and his crew will officiate Week 9’s tilt at Raymond James Stadium between the New Orleans Saints and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the league announced. This is the first Saints game Hussey’s crew will work in 2020, having made the trip to New Orleans twice in 2019 for the Houston Texans season-opener (which the Saints won) and a midyear boat race with the San Francisco 49ers (which was a Saints loss).

Hussey has worked six Saints games since being promoted to referee back in 2015; the team has a 4-2 record when he is on the mic.

Of course, the story of the season so far for the Saints and the officials assigned to work their games is defensive pass interference penalties. No team has been fouled more often for it than the Saints (12 times in seven games), and they are the only defense to yield more than 200 yards because of it (with 257; the Chicago Bears are a distant second-worst at 160).

It’s created a ripple effect on the Saints’ penalty yards situation compared to the rest of the league. Because they’ve been targeted so frequently for defensive pass interference, they also rank worst in total defensive penalty yards (428), and in penalty yards lost as a team (553). But of the four teams to yield 500 or more penalty yards, the Saints are the only squad to give up fewer than 150 yards for penalties on offense (125).

Conversely, no team has benefited more from defensive pass interference than this week’s opponent. The Buccaneers are the only team in the NFL to be given 200-plus free yards off of these fouls (244, to be exact. The Las Vegas Raiders are next-best at 166). It’s a couple of glaring outliers for both the Saints and the Buccaneers.

That might suggest those spot fouls could make a huge difference in Sunday night’s matchup, but Hussey’s assignment could balance the scales. After fouling teams 6 times for 91 yards on defensive pass interference calls in the first two weeks, Hussey’s crew has done a great job of letting defenses play in the months since:

  • Week 1: 3 times for 51 yards
  • Week 2: 3 times for 40 yards
  • Week 3: 0 times for 0 yards
  • Week 4: 0 times for 0 yards
  • Week 5: bye
  • Week 6: 0 times for 0 yards
  • Week 7: 1 time for 8 yards
  • Week 8: 1 time for 3 yards, declined

That trend continues for the Saints themselves. After giving the Buccaneers 101 easy yards on these fouls in Week 1, they’ve been penalized at a far more average rate:

  • Week 1: 4 times for 101 yards
  • Week 2: 2 times for 49 yards
  • Week 3: 3 times for 34 yards
  • Week 4: 2 times for 29 yards
  • Week 5: 0 times for 0 yards
  • Week 6: bye
  • Week 7: 0 times for 0 yards
  • Week 8: 1 time for 13 yards

Compare that to Tampa Bay, where they have often been the beneficiaries of defensive pass interference (as we outlined above):

  • Week 1: 4 times for 101 yards
  • Week 2: 2 times for 33 yards
  • Week 3: 1 time for 0 yards
  • Week 4: 0 times for 0 yards
  • Week 5: 3 times for 26 yards
  • Week 6: 1 time for 40 yards
  • Week 7: 2 times for 15 yards
  • Week 8: 2 time for 29 yards

That’s a lot of numbers to crunch, so I put them together in a chart so they can be compared quickly:

Football is a game of inches, and these spot fouls could play a factor in Sunday night’s game. Hopefully the trend continues for New Orleans, though, and Hussey’s crew doesn’t start throwing penalty flags left and right. A sudden rise in defensive pass interference calls from them would be very out of character given how the season has played out.

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Emmanuel Sanders unloads: ‘What the heck is going on with these refs?’

New Orleans Saints WR Emmanuel Sanders called for an explanation over bad calls against his team on the “17 Weeks” podcast from SiriusXM.

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Emmanuel Sanders has seen a lot in his long NFL career. When he suits up for Sunday’s game with the Detroit Lions, the New Orleans Saints wide receiver will be taking the field for his 159th career game in his 11th year at the pro level.

So he’s as perplexed as anyone at how his games have been officiated. In an appearance on the “17 Weeks” SiriusXM podcast, Sanders called into question whether the NFL’s officials are dealing with the Saints and their opponents with an even hand.

“I’ve never seen the type of calls that they’re calling on the team over and over and over,” Sanders said, via Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football. “I’ve never been part of a team where we’re the second most penalized team.”

Sanders pointed to fouls for defensive holding and pass interference, noting that he’s seen inconsistent officiating from the sidelines: “I’ve been in the league 11 years, I’ve never seen the calls that they make and then the calls that we don’t get, you know? Like, I see a running back running down the sideline and I see the cornerback get held and I know the refs see it but they don’t throw it. Sometimes I sit back and analyze like what the heck is going on with these refs?”

The numbers back it up. The Saints lead the league in penalty yards for defensive pass interference after the first three weeks, and by quite a large margin. They’re a statistical outlier:

So either their coaching staff is teaching players to work differently — and illegally — than 31 other teams, or three different officiating crews have each happened to throw more flags against the Saints defense than anyone else. We’ll see what happens in Week 4 against the Detroit Lions, with third-year referee Shawn Smith working his third career Saints game.

This is the sort of problem that should regress to the norm after a few more weeks, but the Saints have dealt with more scrutiny from officials before. It’s either a coaching flaw from the Saints coaches, consistent bad luck, or as Sanders suggests, a series of bad calls. Here’s hoping the issue, whatever it is, clears up soon.

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