Green Bay There's no disputing it, the Green Bay Packers are the worst team in the league when it comes to penalties.
They are tied with the Buffalo Bills at the bottom with an average of 8.6 penalties per game. The Packers are all by themselves in yards (71.8).
They also happen to be 3-2 and would be in the playoffs if they started today.
Do the Packers need to clean up their sloppy play? Yes. Are they going to make the playoffs if they finish their current pace of 136 penalties for 1,149 yards? Probably not.
But here's the thing about penalties. Sure, it makes great talk-radio fodder. But the truth is, penalties don't matter as long as you are solid in other areas, namely protecting the quarterback and taking care of the ball.
And you don't need to go back very far back in Packers history for proof.
The Packers' last two NFC North division titles came in 2004 and '07. Those teams stand fourth and fifth, respectively, for most penalties in a season (116 and 113) in team history.
Brett Favre was sacked 14 times total in '04 and 19 in '07.
Aaron Rodgers has been dropped 25 times in five games.
The numbers also show the Packers are capable of doing damage if they cut down on the sacks.
The Packers average 2.13 points per drive this season when you eliminate run-out-the-clock scenarios.
When they don't have a sack or penalty on a drive, the Packers average 3.18 points. For comparison, the New Orleans Saints, with the NFL's top offense, average 3.84. The third-ranked Indianapolis Colts average 2.7.
When the Packers have a penalty on a drive, their average slips to 2.07. When they have a sack, it falls off a cliff to 0.75.
So basically, if the Packers cut back a little on the penalties and greatly improve on the offensive line they should be fine.
Want further proof of penalties' nominal effect on a team's success?
Of the 20 teams to advance to the league title games the previous five seasons, five (25%) finished in the top seven for penalties, including the Arizona Cardinals (fifth) and Baltimore Ravens (seventh) last year. The teams allowed 28 and 33 sacks, respectively.
And of the four most penalized teams in league history, none finished worse than 7-9. The 1989 Houston Oilers, who are fifth with 149 penalties, made the playoffs at 9-7.
The 1998 Kansas City Chiefs still rank as the most penalized in NFL history with 158 fouls and 1,304 yards. The quarterbacks coach on Marty Schottenheimer's staff was a mustachioed fellow by the name of Michael John McCarthy.
"It's 11 years ago," McCarthy said. "I don't think it has anything to do with what's going on here. It's a different team. I think it's a stretch (to draw any conclusion). I'll say this, Marty Schottenheimer won over 200 football games in the National Football League."
Schottenheimer also fielded some highly aggressive teams, probably because they had to go blow-for-blow in the AFC West with the Los Angeles Raiders, who led the league in penalties just about every year during that stretch.
McCarthy was on Schottenheimer's staff from 1993-'98 with the Chiefs. They ranked in the top four in penalties five times in that span and seventh once. The Chiefs also went 13-3 twice, advanced to the AFC championship at 11-5 and had just one losing record, in '98.
After that season, Schottenheimer resigned.
McCarthy still said he thinks penalties are important.
"Well, penalties are a negative," McCarthy said. "I think the way you approach them is no different than other things. I mean, pre-snap penalties, there's no excuse for them. I think anybody in football would say that. And that's really the thing we need to get rid of.
"We had five in one game. That's why our numbers are blown out of proportion after five games. We address it, we practice it and we train it. But we're creating a competitive, aggressive culture so there's some times where we may cross the line, and those are the things we work on every day. That's football."
In their 2007 Pro Football Prospectus, Aaron Schatz and Bill Barnwell from footballoutsiders.com studied penalties from 2002-'06. They found there was "almost zero" correlation between record and defensive or special-team penalties. There was, however, a much stronger correlation with offensive penalties.
And in that respect, the Packers are still doing well, even after Sunday's display against the Detroit Lions when they had six offensive infractions. It brought their total to 14, which is one more than the Colts (13) and fewer than the Saints (16).
The Packers do as much, maybe more, to prevent penalties as other teams. They have local referees at every practice. They go over it in film study. McCarthy yanks players when they commit an infraction in practice. Yes, he doesn't get red in the face as Mike Holmgren used to.
McCarthy could decide to have his players run laps after penalties, which is what Cleveland Browns coach Eric Mangini continues to do.
"Last year at this time, we were 32nd in the league in penalties," Mangini said. "This year, we're third. That's progress."
The Browns finished 4-12 last year.
They are 1-5 entering Sunday's game against the Green Bay Packers.