by Joshua Arnold

Created on: February 20, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

It is clear that when it comes to pass interference calls in the NFL, the advantage is with the offense. All you have to do is look at the statistics and you can see that the majority of PI calls go against the defense. Now you can say well of course that is true because they are defending against the pass. But the truth is that 95% of the time the defender did commit pass interference. The referees do miss calls the other 5% of the time when there was no contact or foul on the play. But human error has always been part of the game and you cannot ever blame a loss on the referees. When it comes to the offense there is rarely pass interference called on them unless it is blatant that they pushed off to make a catch or defend the ball from being intercepted.

The defender has a tough task in to play within the rules but at the same time keep his man from scoring. The defender is not allowed to touch the receiver after he is 5 yards past the line of scrimmage or it is illegal contact. He is also not allowed to do anything to impede the receiver from making a catch, whether it is pulling, grabbing, holding, tripping and so on. Imagine if you were asked to line up across from Randy Moss, a 6' 4", 210 lbs. wide receiver. Then you were told to stop this guy from catching the ball, and you are not allowed to touch him after 5 yards or you are going to cost your team an automatic first down. So the offensive side of the ball obviously gets the better pass interference calls with the defense having the clear disadvantage. The only way for the defense to try and get the advantage against these rules is to have the most agile and fastest players in the country. They have to be able to change directions very quickly and stick to the receiver like glue.

There is also another reason for defensive pass interference occurring on a regular basis in football. That reason is winning; the bottom line in college and NFL football is going out and winning on Saturday or Sunday. It is even more so in the NFL than college where everything centers on money. If it is clear that an offensive player is going to score or make a huge gain, many players take the penalty on purpose. It is better to sacrifice some yards and then look to stop them on the next three plays than to let them score and fall short of the ultimate goal and win. But generally the defenders play within the rules and do as much as they can to disrupt the offense without getting caught. As they say, "It's not a penalty unless the referee sees it."

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