Penalties are an epidemic for the NFL in 2026, not just the Browns; CLE stats are bad

“No excuses, play like a champion.” – Wedding Crashers (and every NFL fan, ever) There are so many axioms when it comes to professional sports that they are hard to keep up with. The above quote, pulled from the comedic movie, has found its way into sports lore as well. Fans and media love the idea

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What is the story about?

“No excuses, play like a champion.” – Wedding Crashers (and every NFL fan, ever)

There are so many axioms when it comes to professional sports that they are hard to keep up with. The above quote, pulled from the comedic movie, has found its way into sports lore as well. Fans and media love the idea that it doesn’t matter what happens; a player and/or team is expected to still perform.

Last week, the Cleveland Browns could have lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers due to a blatantly missed pass interference

call on WR Denzel Boston. Penalties and missed ones are a part of the game, but for the Browns, the story has been more about the myriad of ones that have been called on the team this season.

Heading into Week 5, Cleveland leads the NFL with 43 penalties called against them. That is an average of almost 11 a game, a staggering number. Of those, 21 penalties were presnap, also the worst in the NFL.

The Green Bay Packers (42), Baltimore Ravens (39), Los Angeles Chargers (38), and New York Jets (37) round out the top five.

Not only are the Browns getting called for a lot of penalties, but they are not seeing a lot of penalties going their way, just 25, which is the bottom six in the NFL. Whether that is due to the players on the field or Cleveland’s reputation is up for interpretation. What isn’t up for interpretation is that the Browns penalty difference is tied for first in total number (-18) and tied for third worst in yardage (-97).

Interestingly, penalties are an epidemic around the NFL as a whole as well:

So, three things can be true: Officials are throwing more flags, the Browns are not getting the benefit of the calls, and Cleveland is playing undisciplined in receiving a ton of penalties. Yet, the Browns are 3-1 heading into Week 5, embodying the Wedding Crashers notion of “no excuses, play like a champion.”

As the season churns on, Cleveland’s coaches and players need to figure out the penalty issue. If the Browns continue to win, hopefully the team will also start to get more calls as well. For now, refs are throwing way more flags, and Cleveland continues to scrape by despite all of their penalties.

Playing like champions indeed.

Are you surprised how bad the Browns have been with penalties? Surprised how many calls are being made throughout the league? Do you think the team and/or league improves overall or is this a trend for 2026 for both?