Loose officiating

[Mr. Scot]

Last week's games saw surprisingly few penalties called, especially for an opening day. Week one is normally a flag fest.

Turns out it was deliberate, and part of a shift in policy instituted by new Senior Vice President of Officiating Walt Anderson that could make things really interesting this year.

Officials told to focus on "clear and obvious" fouls

Anderson has instituted changes in the mechanics of officiating and explained last week’s drop in flags by saying “people want to see penalties that need to be called, not penalties that are ticky tack.”

“When we were preparing, certainly going in, we had a theme of ‘clear and obvious’ and we wanted that to continue throughout the year,” Anderson said, via NFL.com. “We had to address clear and obvious. You can’t miss clear and obvious and it starts with that. Going forward we don’t want all of a sudden to start calling the ticky tack stuff. We want things that are clear.”

Anderson said that the league has charged officials with “not only improving our performance but improving our consistency.” This week’s second round of games will provide some insight into the consistency end of things.

[top dawg]

Motherfugers need to call the clear and obvious holding calls being manifested against our D-line!

[Mr. Scot]

20 minutes ago, top dawg said:

Motherfugers need to call the clear and obvious holding calls being manifested against our D-line!

Don't hold your breath.

From what I read, it sounds like offensive holding is one of the ones they're going to be really loose with.

[Waldo]

I would be fine with just the obvious penalties but I consider terrible holding to be in that category. I'm a little worried that if they aren't calling the flagrante penalties much that it will escalate into pure crazy BS. I would guess terrible holding will have the effect of some retaliation from Dline guys at some point. 

[Carl Spackler]

This gives them more of an out when you look at the box score and the Bucs are penalized 2-15 and the Panthers are penalized 6-70.

Will also be the case for whoever plays the Cowboys. I’d say NE too but they hate them some Cameron Jarrell. 

[Jeremy Igo]

Cool. Lets hold on every single play then. 

[Caradoc]

I commented on our boards that watching your last game your OL was very handsy.  We noticed it in our first game with the Saints DBs. Interesting that this was allowed intentionally.

[Mr. Scot]

Kind of a double-edged sword. It can be to your benefit sometimes, but can also come back to bite you.

I'd imagine teams that practice skirting the rules will know how to take advantage of this.

[Jeremy Igo]

I'd say it really benefits teams with bad o-lines. 

[Carl Spackler]

3 minutes ago, Jeremy Igo said:

Cool. Lets hold on every single play then. 

The issue is on occasion, Paradis and the guards get beat so fast they can’t even hold. 

[OneBadCat]

Should have kept the PI challenge. Just because the refs are indignant doesn't give them the right to influence the game. It was disgusting that they essentially boycotted the rule because they didn't want to get called out for doing a shitty job.

[Wes21]

44 minutes ago, Jeremy Igo said:

I'd say it really benefits teams with bad o-lines. 

In some way it could help to level the playing field.  Some of the better o lines have been able to get away with crap based on reputation that normal lines can not.

[t96]

2 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Don't hold your breath.

From what I read, it sounds like offensive holding is one of the ones they're going to be really loose with.

If our coaches can take advantage of this new way they're calling it and get all our OL to know how to get away with holds, we can have the best OL we've ever had even with our current group!

[Mr. Scot]

Definitely saw this in today's game.