Emphasis on ineligible man down field penalty

[dlphg9]

I've never seen so many ineligible man down field penalties in my life, so I did some digging and it seems like the NFL has either told the refs to watch out for it, more teams are running RPO's, or something else I can't think of.

So far this year there has been a total of 95 ineligible man down field penalties in 174 games. How's that line up with previous years?

2021 285 games and 69 penalties
2020 269 games and 49 penalties
2019 267 games and 55 penalties
2018 267 games and 29 penalties
2017 267 games and 19 penalties
2016 267 games and 33 penalties

No idea why 2020 has 269 games, but that's what nflpenalties.con says.

So the NFL is on pace for 156 ineligible man down field penalties.

In past years it seemed like that penalty was very rarely called and now you see it every other game. What gives?

[Wallcrawler]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

No one else wanna talk about this?

Ball comes out on time, no penalty.

Hard on O linemen with back turned to know you didn't hand off, or were late with the throw.

Rule is fine, execution needs to improve to stay within the rules.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by Spott

If I had to guess, they are counting playoff games. In 2020 they added an extra wild card game for the AFC and NFC. 2020 was a 16 game regular season schedule and 2021 was 17 games, which is why 2021 have more games.

Yes, they do include playoffs and that's why there are 2 more games. Good call.