NFL officials are calling more penalties than ever

Posted by Admin October 5, 2026 NFL

If you’ve been feeling like NFL football fields have been awash in yellow this season, your eyes have not deceived you. NFL officials are calling more penalties per game than they have in any season dating back to 2009, and it’s not particularly close.

According to data from NFLPenalties.com, NFL officials are calling a little more than 17 penalties per game this season, the most we’ve seen in any single year since 2009. The average game includes 15 accepted penalties, also the most we’ve seen in any single year in that same time span. The previous highs in both of those categories are 16.2 total flags per game and 13.7 accepted penalties per game, both of which happened in 2015.

The Packers, as you no doubt are aware, are one of the hardest hit teams in this ongoing festival of penalties, averaging 10.5 penalties per game. And for those inclined to say this is a long-term issue for Matt LaFleur’s teams, it really isn’t. Outside of this year, LaFleur’s Packers have typically been right in line with the league average for individual team penalties per game; they’ve never averaged more than 6.2 accepted penalties per game in any season since 2019.

In short, NFL games have been flag fests.

What’s causing the increase? There are a few specific penalties to blame, but it’s all on the offense’s shoulders.

Offensive holding, false start, and delay of game have all seen the biggest increases in per game calls from 2025 to 2026. Holding is being called, on average, 3.13 times per game leaguewide, up from 2.4 per game last year.

We’re seeing 2.78 false start flags per game this year, up from 2.39 last year.

And to round things out, we’ve seen an average of 0.97 delay of game penalties per week, an increase from 0.64 last year.

Those penalties alone don’t account for the increase, though it comes pretty close. But in general, NFL games are seeing more and more penalties; across the 49 different infractions already called at least once this year, 26 are being called at a higher rate than last year. Just 15 are being called at a lower rate.

Generally speaking, if you’re tuning in to watch NFL football this season, chances are good you’re going to see more penalties than ever before.