1st Quarter Review: Penalty Breakdown

by: Chris Sullivan

Well guys and gals, four games are done and down the drain. One of the things that the Hawks have prided themselves on in recent years is their discipline--they've had very few penalties, and even fewer of the 'big ones' (i.e., 10+ yards).

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that this 2008 team is following in their predecessors' footsteps. Thus far in 2008, the Hawks have amassed 27 penalties (almost 7 per game) totaling 179 yards (44.75 ypg). These are not great numbers, but I think most alarming is that more than a third of those have been non-trivial penalties of 10+ yard (10/27), 30% have come in the fourth quarter, and 11 of the penalties have been garnered by our Defensive Backs, including three each by Jennings and Wilson to lead the team (our Right CB position leads the NFC West!). Marcus Trufant leads the team in yards penalized with 39 on two penalties, a personal foul and a pass interference call for 24 yards.

The most staggering thing is that on 12 of the 19 defensive penalties, the opposing team scored. On only ONE of the 8 offensive penalties did the Seahawks put up points, and that one was the taunting penalty by Peterson after a turnover--meaning the offense didn't actually commit the penalty so they lost field position, not yards. For those of you keeping track at home, that's a 0 to 12.5% conversion rate on penalties affecting the offense versus a 63% conversion rate for the opponents converting our Defense's penalties into points.

Now, thos isn't an all-inclusive way to look at the problem-- it doesn't consider our points on the opponents mistakes, among other variables. The point I'm making is simply this:

The 2008 Seattle Seahawks are playing undisciplined football, and it is hurting their chances to win. It doesn't help that in half of our games so far, our offense didn't seem to show up to play (and, really, neither did our defense). The Giants would've walked all over us even if we had been penalty-free. I just found the stats interesting.

Thanks to Mike Sando for his penalty excel sheet. You guys can (and should) feel free to play around with it too. END