Bill Belichick not happy that Patriots are among league leaders in penalties against

Bill Belichick (Photo by Ted Fitzgerald)

While there have only been two games played by NFL teams this year there have been some bizarro world situations that are developing. The New Orlean Saints are 0-2. The Buffalo Bills are 2-0. Ryan Fitzpatrick, E.J. Manuel, Derek Anderson, Matt Cassel, Austin Davis and Brian Hoyer all have wins as starting QBs while Drew Brees is still looking to get into the win column. And maybe the most bizarre of all is that the New England Patriots lead the league in penalty yards against while their week 3 opponent, the Oakland Raiders have the fewest.

A stat in Bill Belichick's wheelhouse this week: Patriots lead NFL with 263 penalty yards assessed against them; Raiders have fewest, at 44.
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) September 16, 2014

For the last 10 seasons prior to this one the Patriots have been consistently in the top 10 in the league in penalties called against them per game, while Oakland has perennially been in the bottom 5.

Year      N.E. (Rank) OAK (Rank)
2004      6.0   (5)        7.1    (17)
2005      6.8   (13)      9.2    (32)
2006      6.2   (20)      6.9    (30)
2007      4.8   (9)        7.8    (31)
2008      3.6   (1)        6.8    (29)
2009      5.1   (6)        6.9    (27)
2010      5.2   (8)        9.2    (32)
2011      5.0   (4)        10.2  (32)
2012      5.9   (6)        6.8    (27)
2013      4.2   (2)        7.2    (29)

And then we have the first 2 weeks of 2014….

2014      12    (31)       4.5    (5)

Yes, its a small sample size and it will likely look far more like the last 10 seasons in the end, but it is still a shocking change relative to what NFL fans are used to seeing from both the Patriots and Raiders. It has left Patriots coach Bill Belichick less than happy and he expressed his displeasure during his Monday conference call.

The 15 penalties accepted, and there were several other ones when we had several fouls on the same play, 160 yards or whatever it was, was way too much. We can’t keep doing that. We had a lot of penalties last week. We had a lot of penalties this week, and it’s just not the penalties, it’s the yardage. There are too many personal fouls and too many interference penalties on their last drive. It got them almost down the length of the field. It must have been almost 60 yards in penalties, it seemed like. Things like that, we just can’t afford them. One is too many. If each player gets one penalty we could set an all-time record. … We’ve got to play penalty-free, and we’ve got to do a better job of that. We’ve got to coach it better, not that we haven’t spent a lot of time on it, because we certainly have. But that’s certainly an area that we need to improve.

He is of course right, especially about the personal fouls. That is all about self control and discipline, two things Belichick teams have always prided themselves on.

While I believe that the NFL’s point of emphasis on both offensive and defensive pass interference is a contributing factor, Brandon LaFell, Kembrell Tompkins and Aaron Dobson have all been called for offensive pass interference. That needs to be corrected as those are drive killing penalties. The defensive pass interference penalties that Belichick references on the final Vikings drive felt to me like lazy penalties by young players who knew the game was in hand. That needs to be corrected and hopefully someone like Darrelle Revis or Devin McCourty can be veteran leaders and use those moments on film as teaching moments.

The one penalty that I find totally inexcusable was Brandon LaFell’s offsides on a kickoff. LaFell is off to a horrible start in a Patriots uniform and he needs to get his head on straight or likely he is going to be looking for work elsewhere sooner rather than later.

Thanks to fellow PatsLife writer Thome for contributing to this article, read more of him here and follow him on twitter!


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