Why “Pass Interference” Is Sparking More Controversy Than Ever Before

Ever notice how in families, the older sibling often catches the blame before anyone else? It’s like an unspoken rule: When confusion reigns, the eldest is the fall guy . Now, take that age-old lesson and plop it smack dab in the heated gridiron battles of the NFL. There, every wide receiver quickly figures out the referees have a similar playbook: When uncertainty strikes, the defense gets flagged. It doesn’t matter if the play’s tight or the call’s iffy—if a defender even slightly hinders a receiver, the refs are ready to throw that yellow banner with all the authority of a parent scolding the eldest child. Each NFL season seems to dredge up examples of these eyebrow-raising pass interference calls that drive fans to the brink of madness. Just last Sunday, two separate games opened and closed with questionable flags—or the lack thereof—reminding us all how these split-second judgment calls can twist the fate of contests, and sometimes entire playoff dreams. Intrigued? Dive deeper into the saga of contentious calls and their ripple effects in the NFL world. LEARN MORE

Every younger sibling learns almost immediately a bedrock truth about parents: When in doubt, punish the older kid. You howl at the right time, and no matter how guilty you are, your older brother or sister is going to feel Mom or Dad’s wrath.

Every wide receiver in the NFL learns the same lesson about referees: When in doubt, punish the defense. No matter the catch scenario, if the receiver even appears to be impeded in his pursuit of the ball … bang, yellow flag, first down, spot of the foul.

Pretty much any NFL fanbase can name at least one absurd “that’s not pass interference!” call from memory; we’ll get to the most notable one in just a minute. Two separate “where’s the penalty?” calls bookended Sunday’s games, raising yet again the dreaded specter of judgment calls that can warp a game or a season.

Two games, two cringeworthy PI calls

In the first half of Sunday’s Washington-Miami game, the Commanders’ Deebo Samuel raced up the right side, cut to the middle of the field, put a hand on the chest of Dolphins defender Jack Jones, watched as a Marcus Mariota pass sailed high overhead … and somehow was rewarded with a defensive pass interference flag.

Why was this pass interference? Well, because Jones’ general demeanor prevented Samuel from leaping 15 feet in the air to make the catch, of course. Or something.

The penalty got Washington out of the shadow of its own goalpost and eventually led to a field goal. The Commanders lost in overtime, so this particular penalty didn’t have a consequential effect on the game. About 12 hours later, though …

With just under two minutes remaining in their SNF game against Detroit, leading by seven points and facing a third-and-six from their own 37, the Eagles enjoyed a little unexpected DPI bonus of their own. Philly’s A.J. Brown stole the lunch money of Detroit’s Rock Ya-Sin … and got the refs to throw a flag on him too, for good measure.

The penalty allowed the Eagles to ice the game; Detroit never saw the ball again.

PI: The “What is a catch” question for a new era

You remember the controversy over “what is a catch?” from a few years back. A receiver needed to hold onto the ball, carry it to the ground, swaddle and clothe it, and put it through four years of college in order for a pass to be considered a “catch.” Now, the receivers have their revenge: If a defender has turbulent emotions in his heart at any point in the six days leading up to the game… boom, DPI.

The reason why pass interference is such a maddening penalty is its massively destabilizing (and demoralizing) effect. A defense can completely shut down an offense for three plays, and on the fourth, a desperation heave can turn into a 60-yard gain and a new lease on life if the defender glances improperly at the receiver in the course of the play. Every receiver learns on Day 1 how to leap into the defender to draw the flag on any contested catch. Works (almost) every time.

If you’re wondering about the imbalance between defensive pass interference and offensive pass interference, the fine folks at NFLPenalties.com are here for you. For the full year 2024, including playoffs, referees called 315 DPI penalties to 75 OPIs over 285 games, better than four-to-one favoring of the offense. Factor in yardage, and the spread gets even wider: OPIs cost offenses 716 yards, while DPIs gained offenses 4,844 yards. (Obviously this is not an apples-to-apples comparison; there are different motivations at work here. The offense’s goal is to catch the ball, while the defense’s goal is to prevent the offense from catching the ball. But the spread is still notable.)

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Why can’t PI be reviewed? Spoiler: It once was

Sometimes, the pendulum swings too far in the other direction. A few years back, the NFL held a brief one-season experiment to review pass interference. The league basically had to try something in the wake of the most egregious non-PI call in history — the infamous Rams-Saints debacle in the 2018 NFC championship game that allowed Los Angeles to reach the Super Bowl. (New Orleans was driving deep in Rams territory with less than two minutes remaining, but a non-PI call on clear interference forced the Saints to settle for a go-ahead field goal … the Rams quickly matched that and then won in overtime to go to the Super Bowl.)

In response, the league created a one-year trial of a pass interference review in the 2019 season, but the combination of time spent under the review hood and lack of success — only 13 of 81 pass-interference challenges were overturned — doomed the effort. It’s OK if you don’t remember this; the next season was 2020, and suddenly everybody had much bigger things to worry about.

The league prefers not to review “judgment calls” like pass interference, instead focusing on more tangible either-or propositions like breaking the plane of the end zone or remaining in bounds. Plus, you don’t want your referees feeling like they could get undercut at any moment by a ruling from New York; that’s how bang-bang calls get missed.

Thing is, “everyone eventually gets screwed equally” is not exactly a foundation for long-term confidence. Plus, reviewing judgment calls isn’t a new proposition — it’s the basis of our entire legal system. Give each coach, oh, four blue challenge flags a season that they can throw out in crucial moments to review judgement calls. (Miami shouldn’t have wasted a valuable blue flag in their non-critical situation; Detroit should have gambled.)

And from there, make it quick. Half-baked idea: create a three-ref panel and give them 30 seconds to review the call that their colleague made in real time. If it’s that obvious of a miss, two of the three will vote to overturn. Even better: televise those deliberations, like the ACC is now doing. Think of it as another sponsorship opportunity: the “Warby Parker Closer Look” has a nice $ound to it, doesn’t it, NFL?

NFL fans will grumble about penalties against their team, which is normal and appropriate. But what enrages NFL fans about refs is the same thing that enrages them about, say, a quarterback who throws a pass that hits the defense in the numbers — a misfire so bad that everyone sees it, a misfire so bad that it unbalances the entire game. Mistakes do happen … but in many cases, mistakes can be corrected, too.

I’d say more, but I think I just drew a PI flag myself. Damn.