There is no question that watching the Eagles this season was extremely frustrating. Aggravation would build even further when seeing flags fly all over the place before the ball is even snapped. It felt like the Eagles were taking a ton of pre-snap penalties this season, and it turns out that observation was true.
According to nflpenalties.com, the Eagles had 56 pre-snap penalties called on them, by far the most in the league. The next closest teams were Arizona (45), Cleveland (43), Washington (39), and Jacksonville (37).
Pre-snap penalties seem to be a common occurrence under Doug Pederson. Here's a breakdown of how many they've had each season since 2016 and where they ranked compared to the rest of the league :
36 in 2019 (17 games); T-14th-most
37 in 2018 (18 games) 18th-most
44 in 2017 (19 games) T-5th-most
49 in 2016 (16 games); 4th-most
The good news is that Jason Peters (a notorious false-starter) is not coming back. With Lane Johnson and Brandon Brooks coming back healthy to replace some of the inexperienced linemen, the offensive line as a whole should be committing far fewer pre-snap penalties in 2021. It'll be up to the defensive line to hold up their side of the bargain, and as a team stop committing these costly penalties altogether.
Some other 'fun facts' found on the nflpenalties site:
Malik Jackson (8) was the most penalized defensive Eagle
Matt Pryor (7) was the most penalized offensive Eagle
Pryor (6) had the 2nd-most pre-snap penalties by an offensive player in the NFL
One more oddity found while doing this research was that the Eagles had the most calls go their way this season, benefitting from 112 calls that went against their opponents. The next closest team was Denver (106). This should reassure Eagles fans that the refs weren't really that bad to us this year, and there is no one else to blame besides the team.
