Quote:
Originally Posted by bisonlj
A 10 or 15-yard penalty against the offense is often a series-breaker even if there is no loss of down. Add in the fact fouls by A behind the LOS punish them even more since the penalty is often enforced from that spot. The same distance against the defense has less of an impact.
|
I disagree, because unless it was already 4th down, team A has the option to punt, or to otherwise adjust their play, on subsequent downs. Team B has no analogous way to mitigate their own loss of distance. As a coach and fan, distance penalties against the defense always seemed to me more consequential on avg. than those against the offense.
Consider the small but significant change in the game engendered by the adoption of post scrimmage kick enforcement. The choice of yardage tacked on against the team that becomes the defense is relatively attractive compared to repeating the previous down with a penalty against the same team as offense.