00:00Perry writes, Kevin, I'm about to get sick watching our team get flagged as if they're a tree being rolled.
00:07And then he wrote in parentheses, you're my age, so I think you understand the reference.
00:11Yes, I do understand the reference.
00:13Did you understand the reference, Max?
00:15No, unfortunately, I have to admit.
00:18Do you know what a rolling tree looks like?
00:23No, but I know what a rolling tree looks like.
00:26Yeah, but do you know about toilet papering trees?
00:30Okay, yes.
00:32Okay, that's not a thing for your age group, right?
00:34Not as much.
00:35It's not nearly as prevalent as I think it used to be.
00:37Yeah, it was a massive thing in the 80s, probably the 90s too.
00:42Anyway, Perry continues, the team's lack of discipline is on Quinn.
00:46You can't win games with this level of penalties.
00:52Yeah, we talked a lot about the penalties, but there's actually some data out there that I will share with
00:57you in a moment.
00:58I did not put penalties among my top two or three reasons for the loss to Indy.
01:08Overall, penalties were a big part of the game.
01:10Let me rephrase.
01:11Penalties were probably my number three reason for their loss after, you know, having to play a third string quarterback,
01:18clearly, you know, and what that did to the playbook and whatever else.
01:24And then also Quinn's fourth and one decision, which I thought was really, really not feeling the game in the
01:31moment, feeling the situation, and was a major game changer in the moment.
01:35Again, let me be clear on this.
01:37I don't know if they go on to win the game with AK at quarterback if they punt on fourth
01:43and one from their own 46 with eight and a half minutes to go in the second quarter, up six
01:47to nothing.
01:48But I bet you the score doesn't end up 30 to 13.
01:51I bet you they have a legitimate chance in the fourth quarter to win the game.
01:56I hated that call.
01:58And then penalties and, you know, 10 for Washington, one for Indianapolis was part of it.
02:04But I didn't blame the refs for the loss.
02:07That doesn't mean that I don't think the game was poorly officiated.
02:12I thought the game was very poorly officiated.
02:14I mean, that's as bad an officiated game as you will see.
02:19Ten penalties on one team, one on the other?
02:23Are you kidding me?
02:25The 15-yarder on Amik?
02:27I know we had a caller yesterday say that's a penalty, you know, ten times out of ten.
02:32No, it's not.
02:33No, it's not.
02:34It's a penalty two times out of ten, maybe.
02:37One out of five, maybe.
02:39You know, there were both parties involved.
02:41That was a critical penalty because the fourth and one decision by Quinn ended up costing them seven points instead
02:51of three.
02:53The flag that got picked up on the 40- to 45-yard shot downfield to Deami, the one that
02:59really set Quinn off, was horrendous.
03:03Why did they pick that flag up?
03:06Now, it was 27-13 at the time.
03:08But if you take the Diggs-OPI interference, offensive pass interference flag, which I also thought was not a call
03:18that you see typically at all,
03:20and never really with a veteran receiver, those three calls alone cost them 76 yards.
03:2976 yards.
03:32The three special teams penalties, I'll still say that.
03:36In terms of the penalties that they committed for sure, the three special teams penalties were crucial.
03:43They totaled 48 yards of field position.
03:46And then, of course, the illegal shift, which I still need to get clarification on which of the three players
03:54the referee called it on.
03:57I don't know that I have that.
03:58I don't think it was Deami.
03:59It may have been Antonio Williams.
04:02And I think that play was on the quarterback.
04:05If you're going to go first sound, as Steve Suter told us, if you're going to go first sound, you
04:12know, the quarterback's got to make sure that the receivers are set.
04:16Maybe it's on Blau for calling a first sound snap count with a third-string quarterback.
04:25But the receivers need to get out there, too.
04:28I have no idea how the team assessed blame on that penalty.
04:33But obviously, that was an 88-yard touchdown on a third and long that didn't count that would have tied
04:39the score at 20-20.
04:42They have been on the wrong side of several of these.
04:44And, you know, some of them have been self-inflicted.
04:47You know, certainly the Antonio Williams against Seattle, the 48-yard touchdown run by Krosky Merritt, that was self-inflicted
04:55for sure.
04:57Stefan Diggs in the end zone, self-inflicted.
05:00Frankie Louvoo running out onto the field, pushing the PAT against Seattle back to 48 yards, self-inflicted.
05:06But De'Ami Brown had a touchdown in the Dallas game that should have tied the score at 17 in
05:12the third quarter.
05:14And De'Ami Brown should have had a 45-yard catch, interference penalty drawn in the fourth quarter against Indy.
05:23And he did not hold on the 88-yarder to Antonio Williams.
05:29The illegal shift, I can't say that that was wrong.
05:34Yesterday, I told you that, you know, Washington is nowhere near, as Perry thinks, nowhere near kind of the top
05:45of the list of penalties so far.
05:46There have just been a lot of penalties that have been called.
05:48Washington's 15th in the league in penalties against.
05:53They are also 15th in overall flags because five of the penalties against them were declined.
05:59But so overall flags is a stat, and then accepted penalties is a stat.
06:04They're 15th in both.
06:06And then I mentioned yesterday as well that they've had the fewest penalties in the league called on their opponents
06:15through four weeks.
06:17Now, Sunday was the big one there, and that Indianapolis was only called for one penalty.
06:26The other three games were pretty close in penalty count, so it's not like they've been, you know, 10-1'd
06:33three or four times.
06:35That happened just once.
06:38So Warren Sharp, who I think does a great job, you know, analyzing football, and we've had Warren on the
06:44show many times before.
06:47Warren wrote a story yesterday about week four, through week four, flags hit historic highs.
06:56Week four, he writes, of the 2026 NFL season, saw 17 penalties per game.
07:04It was the most in the NFL in any week since 2015.
07:10He wrote something that I mentioned yesterday that refs sometimes have rules of emphasis coming out of the offseason,
07:16so penalties can be erratic in the first week or two.
07:19I think also we see more penalties typically early in the year, but he wrote, seeing this many this far
07:26into the season is rare.
07:28The 17 penalties per game were the most we've seen in a single week after September since 2005, over two
07:39decades ago.
07:40He wrote, we've seen the most offensive penalties per game, 7.64 on average in the first four weeks of
07:47the season.
07:48That's the most since 2003.
07:52Offensive holding calls are the highest they've been at any point in a season since 2019.
07:57And offensive expected points added, EPA, lost due to penalties is the highest since 2005.
08:08And then he wrote, want even more historic numbers?
08:11Offenses are getting flagged at the highest rate per snap of any week one through four stretch since 2000.
08:216.18 penalties per 100 snaps.
08:25We've seen the number one most penalties called on third or fourth down in the second half of games that
08:32he has on record since at least 2000.
08:35And it's the most EPA expected points added, removed from offenses on these plays that he's ever recorded.
08:44Most penalties ever in the red zone that he's recorded.
08:52You know, he said that a lot of these penalties aren't big yardage penalties, but they are crushing drives.
09:01He said defensive flags are actually down slightly and defensive pass interference is below average, but those are the only
09:07two.
09:09There's a lot more data there, but if you thought you were watching football here in the first four weeks
09:17in the NFL with an increased number of penalties, you are correct.
09:23Oh, here's the other thing.
09:25Over 17 touchdowns have been nullified by penalty.
09:30Washington's got two of those 17.
09:32Antonio Williams and Krosky Merritt against Seattle.
09:36Last year, only five touchdowns through the first four weeks had been nullified.
09:42In 2024, only four had been nullified by penalty.
09:47Yeah, referees are impacting these games right now.
09:53And did you see the two refs who were reprimanded for and suspended for their conduct toward players over the
10:02weekend?
10:02Jeff Seaman is suspended two games for basically the camera caught him having a brief conversation with Arizona tight end
10:15Trey McBride, where he basically told him to F off.
10:22And then Adrian Hill's reaction, I actually thought, I mean, the Jeff Seaman reaction, I'm sure there's a lot of
10:29back and forth between referees and players.
10:32I'm sure the referees get it a lot more than the players get it.
10:35But the reaction from Adrian Hill in the Minnesota-Miami game when Eric Wilson, long-time linebacker, long-time, you
10:43know, upstanding captain type of player on Minnesota's teams and a couple of other teams as well, he got pushed
10:51from behind.
10:52He went into Adrian Hill.
10:54Adrian Hill, the referee, went down to the ground, got up, and got into Eric Wilson's face.
11:00Like he had his feelings hurt, that he got knocked down.
11:06So, Adrian Hill is going to serve a one-game punishment for that response.
11:13I think it's interesting from this perspective.
11:17The league, when the games begin, they back the officials 99.9% of the time.
11:27And so, the first four weeks with all of the flags, you know, the penalties, and then these two instances,
11:35I think the league probably felt like, we need to do something here so that people don't think that we're
11:42just allowing this to fly.
11:44I actually thought the Adrian Hill response was absurd.
11:47I mean, you're a referee, you get knocked down occasionally during the game.
11:51It's not like a safe job all of the time.
