 Penalties in American football games can be confusing or controversial, even among long-time fans, but ironically, they're also generally pretty easy to follow for newer fans. So what do I mean by that? The nice thing for new football fans is that every time a foul is committed, the referee will stop the game and explain everything that happened, as well as the consequences of the penalty. On the other hand, lots of penalties happen so quickly, and there's such a fine line whether they were committed or not, that people will often disagree on whether a call should have been made, which means the coverage of big penalties will often focus on slow-motion replays on 4K screens. But we're not going to get into the minutiae of the rules in this video. What we are going to look at is how a penalty is called, what are some of the most common penalties that you will see in a game, why would a team not want a penalty to be called, and what happens when there are multiple penalties during one play. So when a penalty is committed, one of the referees, football games have seven referees who dress up like old-timey convicts, and any of them has the ability to call a penalty on each play. So one of these referees will call a penalty by throwing a flag, which isn't only a real flag, it's just this little yellow thing that they throw onto the field. And this is a visual signal so that everyone can see that they've called a penalty, because obviously trying to yell wouldn't work so well. When the head referee sees a flag, he'll go over to the ref who threw it and try to figure out the situation, and then he will turn on his microphone and make an announcement where he'll say something like, false start, number 65 at the offense, this is a five-yard penalty, replay first down. So he's giving the why the foul was called, who committed it, which team it was against, what the consequences are, and what down it is now. So even if you don't understand what the actual penalty was or why it was committed, you will at least be able to pick up on the new down and yardage to go. There's also usually a hand motion that he'll make for every penalty, so if you're at a high school game rather than watching it on TV and the referee doesn't have a microphone, then you'll still learn those pretty quickly and you can pick up on what the penalty is. Usually the punishment for a foul is the loss of yardage, typically 5, 10, or 15 yards, and if it's on the offense, then most of the time whatever down it was on the play is repeated. And if it's on the defense, then sometimes the offense will get an automatic first down, so they can be a little harsher on the defense like that. So let's take a look at some of the most common penalties you'll see in a game and their consequences. So false start is actually something that will occur before the play even starts. Now as all the players come up to the line of scrimmage, which is where the ball is, the defense of players have no set position. They can move around to wherever they want to. But once the offense is set, then they cannot move until the ball is snapped unless they're shifting or going in motion. So a false start will be called when one of the offense of players moves before the snap. And usually it's no more than just a small little flinch. Now this rule can sound kind of confusing to explain because players on the line can still turn their heads and things and that's fine, but usually you'll recognize a false start after you see a few examples. When this happens the referees will throw their flags and blow their whistles to stop the play before it's even started. And the head referee will announce false start and note that it's a loss of 5 yards. So they'll move the ball back 5 yards and replay the down. So instead of being first down and 10 yards to go, now it will be first down and 15. The defense of equivalent to false start is encroachment. So while the defense of players can move, they cannot touch any of the players on the offense. This would be a 5 yard penalty against the defense. Again, this is before the play even starts. This can also lead to situations where a defensive player will take a step over the line of scrimmage, realize he's messed up and then quickly jumps back to his side of the ball. As long as no offensive players move, then the play will continue. But a defensive player cannot jump in an offensive player on purpose to try to make him false start. Going off sides can happen to either team. This just means that you are positioned on or past the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped. And that's also a 5 yard penalty. Another pre snap penalty is delay of game. So if you're watching on TV, this is usually a pretty easy one to spot because they'll have the play clock on the screen. And if the offense does not snap the ball when the clock gets to zero, then that's a 5 yard penalty for delay of game. So let's get to some penalties that actually take place during a play. A holding penalty could be called against either team, but usually it's against an offensive lineman who are trying to stop the defenders who are trying to tackle the quarterback. So holding is a 10 yard penalty from the spot of the foul. So if the line of scrimmage is at the 35 and the player is held at the 30, then the offense would be moved back to the 20 for the next play. A face mask penalty can be called on either team for grabbing the face mask of another player's helmet and pulling or twisting it. You know, obviously pulling someone's face mask could lead to a serious injury, like even more so than the rest of playing football, which is pretty much a guarantee you'll get injured somehow, but this one has a rule against it. And it's a big one because a face mask penalty will cost your team 15 yards. So roughing the passer can be a tricky one because the rules changed a lot just a few years ago, but players now have seen to adjusted and it doesn't happen as much as it used to now. Roughing the passer is using excessive force against the quarterback and typically this occurs when the defense is rushing in to try to tackle him and he waits until the last second to throw the ball. Now obviously you cannot hit the quarterback if he doesn't have the ball, but if you're running full speed to try to tackle him, you won't exactly be able to stop your momentum instantly if he lets go of the ball right before you hit him. So the question then becomes how much time between the release of the ball and the hit is acceptable, which is a bit of a gray area and this is one of those deals where it can lead to some disagreements over whether a call should or should not be made. Other parts of this include that if a quarterback has thrown the ball, you cannot land on top of him with your full weight and it's also a no-no to ever hit the quarterback in the head. Roughing the passer is also a big one with a 15 yard penalty and an automatic first down for the offense. So roughing the passer is similar to roughing the kicker or the punter. A field goal and punt plays will often involve defensive players running in at full speed to try and block a kick, which may result in them running into a kicker. So unless the punter really messes up and bobbles the ball, really here you're trying to go for the ball, not actually trying to tackle the kicker. So the penalty for doing so is a 15 yard penalty with an automatic first down, although there's also a 5 yard penalty version for less egregious times when a defender accidentally runs into the kicker. One penalty that could lead to a lot of yardage gained is pass interference, which can either be on the offense or the defense, but is probably more commonly committed by the defense. So once the quarterback throws the ball, the defender cannot touch the receiver. Now, touch is used kind of loosely in this case. It's more that he cannot impede the receiver's pass to the ball by grabbing, holding, tripping, tackling, giving him a wet willy, something like that. So in the NFL, the penalty for defense of pass interference is that the ball is actually placed at the spot where the foul took place, which could potentially be like 70 yards up the field. So this can be a major gain of yards for the offense. In college and high school football, the penalty is just 15 yards, even if the foul took place beyond that, which is still a nice game, but it's not 70 yards, because a lot of the time this will occur on deep pass plays. For offense of pass interference, the penalty is a loss of 10 yards from the previous line of scrimmage. Now, this brings up a potentially interesting situation. What happens if there is defense of interference in the end zone, or really any foul that would result in moving an offense into the end zone? Do they get a free touchdown? And no, they do not. There are no free touchdowns in football or any automatic scoring for that matter. What would happen if there is pass interference committed in the end zone is that the ball is automatically placed on the one yard line, which, while it's not a guaranteed score, it's about as close as you can get. Now, I'm not going to run through every different foul and scenario, but just so you are aware, there are also maybe times where a team is close to the end zone and a foul is committed that rather than that team getting the usual number of yards, the ball would be moved half the distance to the goal line from where they are, rather than being placed on the one yard line. So next, let's look at a situation that might arise where it would actually hurt a team to have a penalty called on the other team, which may sound odd, but here's an example. So the offense has the ball on their own 10 yard line, and they hand off and they're running back rushes for 30 yards. So it's a pretty nice game, but there's a call of defense of holding back at the line of scrimmage. So if that penalty were to take effect, then they would get 10 yards and an automatic first down from the line of scrimmage, rather than the 30 yards that they gained on the play. So in this case, the referee will go to the offense and he will ask, do you want to accept this penalty? And the offense will say no, we want to decline the penalty, and the referee will still make his announcement, holding defense number 69, and then he'll say the penalty is declined. So as a result of the play, the ball will be placed at the 40 yard line first down. So the final thing is what happens if there are multiple penalties on the same play? What happens then? If they are both on the same team, then generally only the one that will benefit the other team the most is applied. So if the defense was caught both holding and committing pass interference, then whichever penalty would move the offense further up the field will count. Unfortunately for the offense, they are not added together. Now if there are penalties on both teams, then in almost all cases the penalties will offset, meaning they cancel each other out and they will just have a do-over from the previous down and spot and act like it never happened. But luckily, both for new and old fans, as always, the referee will explain everything so everyone gets back on the same page again.