Penalties

Penalties

Of course the rules are not always followed. What follows is a guide to what can be done wrong in the game of American football, and what happens when a player commits one of these offences.

Infringements are penalized with a loss of yards and sometimes a down.

15 yards and automatic first down
- Piling on
- Roughing the passer
- Roughing the kicker

15 yards
- Spearing (diving helmet first) at an opponent
- Clipping (when a player blocks another from behind)
- Kicking, or interfering with a ball that has run loose
- Blocking below the waist
- Unsporting conduct, and excessively rough play

10 yards
- Illegally using hands on the offense
- Having an ineligible player upfield for a pass play
- Tripping

5 yards and automatic first down
- Holding (by a defender)
- Running by the kicker
- Illegally using hands when on the defense

5 yards and loss of down
- Making a forward pass from behind the line of scrimmage
- Intentional grounding

5 yards
- Player out of bounds at the snap
- Forward pass not from a scrimmage
- Crawling
- Encroachment, if a player makes contact with an opposing player before the ball is snapped
- Kick-off out of bounds
- Accidentally grabbing opponent's face mask
- Any formation, return of punt, shift, substitution, or motion that is illegal
- Invalid fair catch signal
- Having less than seven players on the offensive line at the time of the snap
- A time out longer than two minutes
- Delay, after a play has ended the offensive team must restart play within thirty seconds
- An infringement at the 'point after' attempt, the kick is moved 5 yards closer if the defense are at fault, 5 yards further away if the offense are at fault

Loss of down
- A second forward pass from behind the line of scrimmage (only one forward pass is allowed in any one play)
- A forward pass which touches an ineligible receiver