Penalty talk is hot right now, as it should be. Time and time again in the 2024 season, referees have missed face masks, called phantom holds, didn’t call clear holds, and, of course, called atrocious roughing the passer penalties. It only makes sense that the Super Bowl happens to be a rematch between two teams who played in a Super Bowl two years ago and that one was essentially ended because of a penalty.
Now, for Super Bowl LIX, we’re looking at a Kansas City Chiefs team that seemingly gets all of the penalties in their favor and a Philadelphia Eagles team that couldn’t buy a flag. Again, that’s what it seems like — but that doesn’t mean it’s reality.
Complaining about penalties is cheap and easy
You can’t control the refs. No one can. By nature, they are psychopaths. They get no glory and all of the criticism, and they don’t have to be accountable for anything. It’s a job built specifically for sociopaths and emotional masochists.
The head referee for Super Bowl LIX is Ronald Torbert … the same Ronald Torbert who officiated Super Bowl LVI. Remember him?
With 1:38 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Rams were down by four and had a third-and-goal from the Bengals’ eight-yard line. Matt Stafford threw to Cooper Kupp, and linebacker Logan Wilson swatted the ball down before it got to Kupp. It looked clean to the naked eye, but a flag came for a defensive holding on Wilson. Instead of a fourth-and-long, the Rams had a new set of downs and ended up scoring the game-winning touchdown four plays later.
Ol’ Ron is going to insert himself into this game at some point, and it’s going to make a whole lot of people angry. So, before we look at each team’s penalty tendencies, we need to see how Ronnie calls the game.
This table shows the number of penalties Torbert’s crews call per game, how that compares to the average, and where that ranks in the 17 referee crews in the league. All of these numbers are coming from NFLPenalties.com.
Penalty | Tolbert/game | Avg./game | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
False Start | 2.41 | 2.48 | 9 |
Off. Holding | 2.88 | 2.48 | 4 |
DPI | 1.18 | 1.11 | 9 |
Def. Holding | .47 | .65 | T-11 |
Unn. Roughness | .88 | .65 | 3 |
Delay of game | .76 | .61 | T-3 |
Def. Offsides | .47 | .57 | T-12 |
Illegal Formation | .24 | .45 | 15 |
Roughing | .47 | .35 | 5 |
Ill. Man Downfield | .47 | .26 | 1 |
Total | 10.05 | 11.74 | 16 |
Getting a head ref who calls the second-fewest penalties in the league is a good thing. That should make everyone happy because the fewer the flags in a game, the better.
Now, just to make this easier, let's say there are two types of penalties: judgment calls and ‘yeah, we all see that’ calls. The YWAST calls are the offsides, the illegal formations, the false starts, and the illegal man downfield calls … for the most part. Sometimes you’ll get a ticky-tack illegal man downfield penalty, and it’ll make you shake your head, but most of the time, those penalties are pretty cut and dry.
The judgment calls are the DPI, the holding, the roughing the passer, and the unnecessary roughness calls … again, for the most part. That’s not how it should be, but that’s how it is.
The thing that stinks about this referee crew assignment is that Ronnie calls four of the five judgmental penalties more often than the average.
Delay of game penalties are in a totally different category because the rules around them are archaic and dumb. It’s based purely on how fast an official can move his eyes to the ball after watching the play clock hit zero for one second. Either Torbert’s crews have fast eyes, or they are quick to count ‘one one thousand’ in their heads. Whatever the case, seeing them being ranked third is weird.
Now, let’s get to compare how often each team gets penalties called against them per game and how that looks next to the average. For reference, this season the Eagles have been called for 118 penalties (12th) and the Chiefs have been called for 103 (25th).
Penalty | PHI/game | Avg./game | KC/game |
|---|---|---|---|
False Start | 1.35 | 1.24 | 1 |
Off. Holding | 1.05 | 1.24 | 1.63 |
DPI | 0.4 | 0.55 | 0.53 |
Def. Holding | 0.3 | 0.32 | 0.32 |
Unn. Roughness | 0.3 | 0.33 | 0.32 |
Delay of game | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.05 |
Def. Offsides | 0.25 | 0.29 | 0.21 |
Illegal Formation | 0.25 | 0.23 | 0.11 |
Roughing | 0.2 | 0.18 | 0.05 |
Ill. Man Downfield | 0.35 | 0.13 | 0 |
There aren’t many huge discrepancies between the two teams, and that makes sense. These are the two teams in the Super Bowl. Undisciplined teams lose games and don’t make it this far.
There are a couple of glaring parts there: the Eagles’ getting called for illegal man downfield penalties .35 times per game and the Chiefs getting called for offensive holding 1.63 times per game.
For the Eagles, that .35 is actually the highest rate of any team in the NFL. If you mix that with Ronnie T.’s proclivity/addiction to calling illegal man downfield, it’s not great. We’ve seen some huge plays get thrown in the trash because the Eagles have a lineman too far downfield.
For the Chiefs, their 1.63 offensive holding calls is the second-highest rate of any team in the NFL.
The biggest discrepancy is the difference between the number of times the Chiefs and Eagles get called for Illegal man downfield; the Chiefs haven’t had a single one of those all season despite running RPOs at the highest rate in the NFL.
I go out of my way to not watch Chiefs games as much as I can (it’s a mental health play), but I know that the way they run RPOs is different than everyone else. That being said, it’s weird that the Chiefs haven’t been called for a single one of these penalties through 19 games.
Now, for the fun part: how many times do these teams benefit from penalties? For reference, this season the Eagles have benefitted from 105 penalties (24th), and the Chiefs have benefitted from 121 (10th).
Penalty | PHI/game | Avg./game | KC/game |
|---|---|---|---|
False Start | 0.7 | 1.24 | 1.05 |
Off. Holding | 1 | 1.24 | 1.11 |
DPI | 0.3 | 0.55 | 0.47 |
Def. Holding | 0.35 | 0.32 | 0.42 |
Unn. Roughness | 0.55 | 0.33 | 0.16 |
Delay of game | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.42 |
Def. Offsides | 0.4 | 0.29 | 0.37 |
Illegal Formation | 0.05 | 0.23 | 0.32 |
Roughing | 0.1 | 0.18 | 0.26 |
Ill. Man Downfield | 0.1 | 0.13 | 0.11 |
The Chiefs aren’t getting more flags in their favor in any particular area. They’ve benefited from defensive holding the sixth most, illegal formation the sixth most, delay of games the seventh most, and roughing the passer calls the eighth most of all the teams in the NFL. Yeah, that’s closer to the top, but it’s not like they’re blowing any team out of the water like everyone would have you believe.
The Eagles are different. They benefit from unnecessary roughness penalties the fourth most, but they’re on the other side of the spectrum for most of the other penalties. They benefit from roughing the passer the seventh least, offensive holding the sixth least, DPIs the fifth least, false starts the third least, and illegal formations the very least.
Penalty-wise, this is a ‘something’s got to give’ game. The Chiefs’ offensive can’t stop holding, and the Eagles’ defense couldn’t even get held by their grandmothers. Based on what we’ve seen from the Ron-ster and how often he calls offensive holds, the Eagles might come out ahead and get a holding call or two. Especially since there’s a mondo-sized difference between how good the Eagles' defensive line is and how not-good the Chiefs’ offensive line is.
There are two things the Eagles can do to keep the refs out of this game: Score, score again, keep scoring after that, and then score some more. Don’t let the game get close. They also cannot, for any reason, wear black gloves. James Bradberry did that and got called for defensive holding at the end of Super Bowl LVII. If he was wearing white gloves to match the Chiefs' white jerseys… well, it’s just better not to think about it.