Phillips vs Parcells - Penalties

I received a massive amount of feedback from our look at the penalty problem from Wednesday, so since we have an extra day to prepare for Monday Night, allow me to address that feedback today and then do the Game Plan for the Giants on Monday morning.

At the heart of many emails was the issue with Parcells vs Wade. Here is what I wrote on Wednesday:


Since the start of 2007, only Oakland has committed more penalties than the Cowboys.
Since the start of 2008, nobody has committed more penalties than the Cowboys.
Since the start of 2009, only Oakland has committed more penalties than the Cowboys.

And for those of you who think "this team had a penalty problem under Bill Parcells, too", let me put that to rest.

From 2003-2006, "the Bill Parcells era", the Cowboys ranked 25th in the NFL in penalties during his tenure. 25th! Only 7 teams in the NFL committed FEWER penalties than the Cowboys did under Parcells. The only teams that had fewer flags than the Cowboys: Chiefs, Browns, Colts, Steelers, Broncos, Seahawks, and Jets.


Many of you left comments about this commentary, so let me share one with you:

Craig writes:

Bob,

I love your work. But I'm going to have to ask you back up your stats about the Parcells era vs now.

A quick check over at NFL.com stats show the Cowboys in bottom half of the league in penalties. Their Defense even lead the league in penalties in 2005! Now there aren't team totals available for 3 year spans but it's hard to see how below average performance on both sides of the ball added up to 7th best after 3 years.

Thanks, Craig. I am happy to show my math. NFL.com may divide the penalties by unit, but let's keep things simple here and just look at the ideas of the Dallas Cowboys penalty report card.

For context, let's start with the Dave Campo era:

Year	NFL Penalty Rank	Total Penalties	NFL Pen Yard Rank	Pen Yards
2000	10th	108	6th	963
2001	18th	91	19th	744
2002	14th	105	5th	974

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Now, the Bill Parcells era:

Year	NFL Penalty Rank	Total Penalties	NFL Pen Yard Rank	Pen Yards
2003	21st	98	20th	837
2004	24th	105	23rd	867
2005	25th	99	30th	739
2006	12th	100	5th	939

HTML Table

And finally, the Wade Phillips era - (including this year through 5 games - perhaps most alarmingly is the fact that on a per game basis, the Cowboys are actually #1 in 2010):

Year	NFL Penalty Rank	Total Penalties	NFL Pen Yard Rank	Pen Yards
2007	8th	104	8th	815
2008	1st	119	2nd	952
2009	4th	115	5th	892
2010	3rd	49	6th	404

HTML Table

i think the raw numbers are not as important as the ranks. The reason is that from year to year there are different NFL initiatives that may raise or lower overall penalty calls. 100 team penalties in 2001 may not mean the same as 100 penalties in 2009. That is why the rank within the league in a given year is more important to me.

I think when you look at these numbers, it is pretty clear that Wade Phillips' teams have a far greater issue with penalties than Bill Parcells' teams. All you need to do is look at the number of times that they were ranked in the Top 10. Parcells' teams were never ranked in the Top 10 in total penalties (although they were very close in 2006), whereas, Phillips' teams never ranked outside of the Top 10.

Penalties are not everything. In fact, many of you have properly pointed out that Wade Phillips' teams also have a higher win percentage (.654 vs .531) and playoff wins (1 vs 0). But, when discussing this topic, we should try to remember that perception is not reality.

There was a phase when Parcells was challenged about penalties (we all remember his "I don't coach penalties" quote), but that was likely in 2006 when his era had quite an uptick in flags. But, even in his most horrendous year in penalties, he still didn't crack the Top 10 in the NFL.

And Wade has never been outside of the Top 10 most penalized teams in the NFL while in Dallas.