It’s impossible to ignore the number of penalties that have been called across the NFL this season. A total of 963 penalties were accepted in the first four weeks, which is the most ever dating back to 1978 when play-by-play tracking started.
The Los Angeles Rams are typically among the most disciplined teams in the NFL each year but that hasn’t been the case this season. They’ve had far too many infractions, particularly on offense when in scoring range.
Through Week 5, the Rams have had 42 penalties called against them, which is the seventh-most in the NFL. Those 42 penalties have totaled 368 yards, also the seventh-most in the league.
The chart below gives a visual representation of just how bad the penalties have been for Los Angeles.
Penalties
& Penalty Yards through Week 5 Penalties: #1 SF & IND, #32 CLE Penalty Yards: #1 IND, #32 NYJ pic.twitter.com/tyLaEYHPjV
— SFdata9ers🏈📊 (@sfdata9ers) October 13, 2026
Throughout the week leading up to Monday night’s game against the Buffalo Bills, Sean McVay emphasized the Rams’ need to clean up the penalties. Unfortunately, nothing changed. They committed 11 penalties for 84 yards, from false starts to defensive pass interference.
The biggest problem is that these penalties are leading to points for the other team, or are stalling offensive drives by putting Los Angeles behind the sticks. Even Emmanuel Forbes Jr.’s special teams penalty against the Broncos cost the Rams most 40 yards of field position and led to points for Denver.
During Tuesday's press conference, McVay once again made it clear that the Rams have to cut down on the penalties, despite the fact that flags are up across the league.
“There's been a lot more flags in general. I'm never looking for excuses. That'll never be something that you'll ever hear from me," McVay said. "The things that I'm surprised with are some of the procedural things pre-snap. We can't have four false starts from four different players. It's players that have shown that that's not something that's the norm. You have to keep working through it. We have to figure it out and we have to be able to overcome those types of things. I did think that there were some instances we were able to do that. Talk is cheap. I've talked to you guys about it. We'll keep emphasizing it. Ultimately, it's a get it done type of thing. There are some occupational hazards on some of the competitive ‘bang bang’ types of plays, which I'm always understanding of, but we need to clean it up. When we get ourselves behind the sticks, it's been difficult to overcome and we get out of the normal standard mode of operation that we want to live in. I do believe in these players. I believe that I have to do a better job of creating clarity and whatever that is that's leading to some of these different things. Hopefully I'm not talking about this with you guys after our game this week.”
The good news is that McVay is confident his players will adjust and improve in that area.
“It's high," he said of his confidence it will get turned around. "There have been just more flags in general on a lot of the non-procedural, pre-snap things. We want to get our thumb around those things and like I've told you, my only goal is to understand, how are the officials being educated? How are they seeing it? How can we consistently coach the techniques and fundamentals that are in alignment with trying to avoid those things? The pre-snap stuff is out of the norm and I do think that it'll trend in the direction that's been consistent with what we've been because I do have the confidence in those players that you alluded to. We're going to continue to work on it. You talk about it and you don't want to overdo it where it paralyzes your ability to play, but you have to make guys aware. When you have the right people like we do, I am confident that this will be a blip. The only way that I'll know is hopefully we handle it so that I don't have to answer the questions next week, which I'd be asking if I were you guys as well.”
The Rams will have a chance to get better against the Cardinals, who are middle of the pack in penalties with 36 on the year. Los Angeles will be at home in a favorable environment where the crowd won't be working against them, so false starts and pre-snap penalties shouldn't be an issue.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Penalties continue to drag down Rams: 'We need to clean it up'
