Penalties a telling story

[bucky]

Mike Reiss has a breakdown of the team's penalties so far in the year.

Penalty watch: TEs pick up flags - New England Patriots Blog - ESPN Boston

I think the nature of most of the penalties is very indicative of the way the team has played so far this year - dumb.

Of the 16 penalties (listed below), 10 would be categorized as mental errors - False Start, Encroachment, Illegal Shift/formation, Delay of game, fair catch interference, and TBC's stupid roughness penalty. 3 mental errors per game is not what I expect from a BB-coached team. Let's see how they do in this area going forward.


False start – 3
Defensive pass interference -- 2
Offensive pass interference -- 2
Holding (offense) – 2
Encroachment – 2
Delay of game – 1
Fair catch interference -- 1
Illegal formation -- 1
Illegal shift – 1
Unnecessary roughness -- 1

 

[shirtsleeve]

Re: Penalties a telling story.

Interesting breakdown.

One catagory that seems glaringly missing (TBC's notwithstanding) is penalties of aggressiveness. Things like hitting a defenseless reciever and roughing the passer. I personally would prefer to see the penalties in this area than the mental failure area we currently observe. (Obviously, all penalties are negatives, and do not warrant merit, but given the choice, I would prefer to see "mean" penalties than brain dead ones).

 

[Amnorix]

Re: Penalties a telling story.

Welcome to having a young team...

 

[jmt57]

Re: Penalties a telling story.

The good news is that overall the Pats are doing pretty well with penalties; not something you would expect with so many young players and new starters. The Pats rank 12th in penalty yards per game (48.0) and 10th in penalties per game. averaging 5.3. The bad news is that Miami is currently the least penalized team in the league; they are first in yardage (27.3 per game), and first in penalties with 3.7 per game.

I do agree that given a choice, I'd prefer to see a mistake made due to being over aggressive rather than a mental error. However I don't know that I would put much emphasis on the penalty stats considering the Bills and Bucs are among the least penalized teams, while the Packers and Jets are among the NFL's most penalized teams.

 

[BelizePats]

Re: Penalties a telling story.

Proof of just how young and inexperienced this team is. A veteran BB coached team does not have these kind of mental errors. That said, TBC's unnecessary roughness call during the Jets game was a veteran mistake that should not have happened. Just a dumb play by a vet who knows better.