Every year, during every Cowboys game, the cries of “These refs are out to get us”, or “Goodell has this crew paid off to get us” go out. But it does beg the question, Is this really true? What evidence do we have that we are getting hosed by the guys in stripes?
Looking at the number of total penalties called during the season is one way to look at the big picture of how often the Cowboys are being flagged during games compared to the rest of the league. Here’s a link to a pretty good free site to examine penalties called:
https://www.nflpenalties.com/phase.php?year=2018
Here’s how the Cowboys stacked up last year when it came to penalties called against us:
- The Cowboys were 21st in the NFL last year in total number of penalties called against us. In other words, 20 of the 32 teams in the NFL had more penalties called than we did.
- We were ranked 10th in the league in offensive holding calls against us, which is in the top third. But here’s some perspective: We were called 25 times for offensive holding. Our opponents were called 25 times last year for offensive holding. Can’t say we were unequally called.
- In a year when defensive holding was seemingly called constantly, the Cowboys were ranked 24th in number of defensive holding calls.
So looking at 2019 in the penalties called department, it looks like we weren’t penalized as much as most teams.
one thing I will say is the quality of refereeing in the NFL has dropped in my opinion. But I don’t think any one team has been the beneficiary of the refs bad calls. This is a problem the NFL needs to address.
It’s not a fairness issue as much as a quality issue.