It's WAAAYYY Overdue - Holding Calls Should be 5 Yards

[cwater10]

15 hours ago, Ned Flanders said:

I remember when holding was actually a 15 yard penalty.

Ah, fun times!  

 

A young Bills tackle, Ken Jones actually changed his number from 69 to 72 in attempt to stop/trick refs from looking to flag his number automatically on pass plays.  Rule was changed to a simple 10 yard penalty in 1978.  About that time, Ken Jones (coincidentally?) became one of the better tackles in the league.

Edited December 10, 2022 by cwater10

[BobbyC81]

19 hours ago, Logic said:

I think 10 yard penalty is perfect.

As others have said, a sack usually results in the loss of 5-7 yards anyway. If it was only a five yard penalty, people would hold all of the time to save themselves the down.

The penalty has to be bad enough that teams don't do it on purpose.

If we want to talk about the enforcement or language of holding penalties, that's fine, but the penalty yardage for it is right on point, IMO.

Now....defensive pass interference? THAT should change. 45-yard penalties that decide game outcomes are ridiculous and should not happen.

A bigger issue to me is penalties called that really didn’t affect the play.  They need to use more common sense.  A run goes to the right and a blocker on the left side gets called for holding.  Sure it may affect the defender’s pursuit but not always.  
 

For the pass interference, I agree they should make it 15 yards again.  It’s still significant so defenders don’t just tackle receivers so they don’t get beat but not game changing.

Edited December 10, 2022 by BobbyC81

[LeGOATski]

2 minutes ago, BobbyC81 said:

A bigger issue to me is penalties called that really didn’t affect the play.  They need to use more common sense.  A run goes to the right and a blocker on the left side gets called for holding.  Sure it may affect the defender’s pursuit but not always.  

Yep. The whole spirit of the rules is to prevent an unfair advantage. The refs seem to forget this sometimes and will call some ticky-tack violation that had no impact on the play. It should always be in the back of their minds "did this create an unfair advantage for the offending team?" If not, pick up the flag and move on.

[Locomark]

I would be tackling people as an OL if I knew I would only cost my team a measly 5 yards and not even loose a down. With a sack you loose a down and more than 5 yards so you might as well hold every down. 

[Goin Breakdown]

Keep things as is. Teams would be holding more if it were only 5 yards. Want to eliminate holding. Make the penalty even farther. 50 yards haha. I'm not serious. Seriously

[Steve O]

Well, defensive holding is 5 yards automatic first down.  Offensive holding should also be 5 yards but automatic 4th down. Either that or do away with the automatic 1st down on defensive holding.  Hate seeing third and 20, a 5 yard hold away from the play but the drive continues because of the piddly a$$ holding call.