Football Penalties List
Penalties List
In football, when a team commits an infraction against the rules of the game a foul will be called and a penalty will be assessed. Penalties can have varying levels of punishment for teams including loss or gain of yardage, automatic 1st downs, or even ejection. Referees will usually signal penalties by throwing a yellow flag and using the corresponding hand motion for the respective penalty. Most penalties are common throughout the sport of football. However, some penalties may be different at varying levels of the game. The following is a list of penalties in football.
Defensive Penalties
These penalties can only be committed by the defense team, the severity of the penalty varies for each. Defensive penalties usually result in the offensive gaining yards or an automatic 1st down.
Offensive Penalties
These penalties can only be committed by the offensive team, the severity of the penalty varies for each. Offensive penalties usually result in a loss of yardage.
- Offensive holding
- Offensive offside
- Offensive too many men on field
- False start
- Illegal forward handoff
- Illegal forward pass
- Illegal motion
- Illegal touch kick
- Illegal touch pass
- Ineligible downfield kick
- Ineligible downfield pass
- Intentional grounding
- Invalid fair catch signal
- Kick catch interference
Offensive or Defensive Penalties
These penalties can be committed on either the offensive or defensive side of the ball and many can happen in dead ball situations. The severity of the penalty varies with each.
- Delay of game
- Chop block
- Clipping
- Delay of kickoff
- Disqualification
- Equipment violation
- Facemask
- Illegal blindside block
- Illegal block above the waist
- Use of helmet
- Horse collar
- Illegal batting
- Illegal use of hands
- Illegal crackback
- Illegal formation
- Illegal cut
- Illegal peel back
- Illegal shift
- Illegal substitution
- Illegal kick and kicking loose ball
- Illegal wedge
- Low block
- Offside on free kick
- Player out of bounds on kick
- Sideline infraction
- Taunting
- Tripping
- Unnecessary roughness
- Unsportsmanlike conduct