NFL has record number of penalties through three weeks

The product we have seen around the National Football League in the first three weeks of the season has been impacted a great deal by injuries to star players. From Tony Romo and Dez Bryant to Ben Roethlisberger and Drew Brees, some of the league's top stars have fallen victim to the injury bug.

This is pretty much out of the control of the league office in New York City. Injuries happen all the time in professional sports, it's hard to micromanage from that standpoint.

Unfortunately for the NFL, the amount of penalties we have seen through three weeks is also impacting the product we see on the field.

ESPN's Adam Schefter pointed out an alarming stat Tuesday morning that indicated there have been more accepted penalties through the first three weeks of the 2015 NFL season (730) than in any prior year. For those of you who are not good at math (I used a calculator), that's an average of 15.2 accepted penalties per game.

While the number of penalties decreased from a record 298 in Week 2 to 229 this past weekend, there has to be some concern over the amount we are seeing up to this point in the season.

This past Sunday alone, six teams committed double-digit penalties, including a whopping 13 by the Baltimore Ravens in their close loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Through Week 3, the Dallas Cowboys hold the single-game mark with 18 penalties against the Philadelphia Eagles in that sloppy divisional game back in Week 2. All said, there were 26 penalties in that game.

Why does any of this matter? Outside of games being directly impacted by penalties, it's clear that rules implemented years ago to favor the offense have had a direct correlation here. There were a total of 38 illegal contact penalties in the NFL back in 2013. Through three weeks of the 2015 season, that number is already at 22 — a pace of 125 for the entire season.

Some of the increases we have seen this year has to do with substandard offensive line play around the NFL. For example, there have already been 119 false start penalties through three weeks. If kept up at this level, that would be an increase of 62 from last season and a whopping 144 from the 2013 campaign.

All of this has led to more commercial breaks in between plays and longer games throughout the week — two things that will not help the NFL brand grow. The league might want to see how this plays out for the remainder of the 2015 season and attempt to implement changes when the new league years comes calling in March.

All penalty stats provided by NFLpenalties.com

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