Whether it’s roughing the passer, targeting, hands to the face, or simple false start, or something infinitely more egregious, penalties and yellow flags are seemingly being thrown around at an all-time rate in today’s NFL. Unfortunately, there’s data to back that up.
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In 2009, NFL officials were averaging one flag thrown per 25.154 plays. Since then, however, that rate has steadily worsened, and by October of 2024, officials were averaging one flag thrown for every 19.782.
In that same span of time, offensive pre-snap penalties shot up by 6%, and special team pre-snap penalties ballooned by more than 41%. That’s a lot of flags, so it’s no wonder why some may be asking, “has there ever been an NFL game with no flags?” The short answer? Yes. There’s been a few of them, four to be exact, but it’s also been about 100 years since it happened.
The most recent instance came all the way back in 1940, when a one-win Pittsburgh Steelers team hosted the winless Philadelphia Eagles. According to the NFL Hall of Fame, many of those who were in attendance were in fact children who had been granted free admission to help Pittsburgh pack the stands.
Thanks to the lackluster product that was on the field, as well as the fact that only one touchdown was scored that day, it’s jokingly speculated that the officials refused to penalize either team so as to not prolong the crowd’s suffering. Conveniently enough, however, you won’t have to dig much further back in history to find the three other flag-less games in NFL history, as they all took place between 1934 and 1938.
Every other NFL season throughout that time period featured at least one game that was free from referee intervention. The first one in recorded history took place on October 28th, 1934, when Brooklyn Dodgers took on the Pittsburgh Pirates.
After a 75-yard touchdown gave the Dodgers a commanding lead early in the contest, many believe that the lopsided nature of the contest, as well as the chilling weather, was enough to warrant Tom Thorp, the head official, keeping his flag in his pocket for the full duration of the match up. It’s also worth noting that two of the four flag-less games in the history of the league both saw an officiating crew that was headed by the same individual, William Halloran.
Halloran was in charge that day for the Steelers lousy 7-3 victory over the Eagles, but the same is also true for the Boston Redskins’ 1936 match up against the Dodgers. Unfortunately for modern fans, he’s no longer around to relieve the game of his flag-happy successors.
Despite the various improvements in technology, many of which were believed to help limit the need for human referees, the game of football seems destined to continue its current trend of penalizing players more and more often. At the end of the day, it’s a perception-based game, as no spot or first-down marker is ever truly perfect.
Grid iron football is a human sport. It’s made by humans and is meant to be played and officiated by humans. So until technology reaches a point where there’s no longer a need for real-life referees who can spot the ball properly more often than not, fans will have to accept the human aspects and errors that come with the sport.
