Pass interference penalties can mean big yards in NFL games. What does the foul mean?
It’s happened to many football fans.
Your favorite NFL team blocks an explosive, downfield pass. But then a flag is thrown. Your excitement turns to anger.
It’s pass interference.
Pass interference – a foul that has derailed many great passing plays – is at the most basic level self-explanatory. When a player downfield hampers another player’s ability to catch a thrown football, that’s pass interference.
Of course, details matter. Pass interference can only be committed by players who are more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage. The pass interference can be any act that “significantly hinders an eligible player’s opportunity to catch the ball,” according to NFL rules. Both the offense and defense can commit pass interference.
Pass interference only occurs when a forward pass is thrown from behind the line of scrimmage. “When the ball is in the air, eligible offensive and defensive receivers have the same right to the path of the ball and are subject to the same restrictions,” the rules say.
So what kinds of actions count as pass interference? Examples include shoving an opponent, grabbing an opponent’s arm and extending an arm across an opponent’s body, among others.
But some actions are allowed while the ball is in the air. Those include “incidental contact” between two players competing for the ball or inadvertent tangling of feet. Laying a hand on a player in a way that does not restrict his attempt to make a play on the ball is also allowed.
Defensive pass interference is among the most dreaded penalties in football because it gives the offense a new set of downs at the spot of the foul, which can far down the field depending where the foul happened. If a personal foul is also involved, a 15-yard penalty is also enforced.
For offensive pass interference, the penalty is a loss of 10 yards from the previous spot.
