The Patriots Have Some Really Bad Penalties

The Patriots have been flagged for 30 penalties in three games, good for 30th place in the league with respect to overall team discipline. New England is averaging a league worst 107.3 penalty yards per game.

Read that again. The Patriots are being flagged for more than a football field every week.

Some penalties can't be avoided, but there are some boneheaded plays that need to be highlighted.

There are eight "Offsides on a Free Kick" penalties that have been flagged in the whole league, with two belonging to the Patriots. To translate, this means the Patriots are offsides on a kickoff. That should literally never happen.

The team is tied for worst in the league (with the St. Louis Rams) with three "Offensive Pass Interference" calls, negating 61 receiving yards from Danny Amendola- yardage that would make him the third leading receiver on the team.

The team is also tied for worst in the league (also with the Rams) with three "Roughing the Passer" flags, although it should be noted all three have come "Away".

The Patriots are also tied for worst in the league with three "Illegal Block Above the Waist" infractions, one from Nate Solder and two coming on the same punt return against the Vikings (Logan Ryan and Tavon Wilson).

These are all issues that can be fixed with technique and coaching. There's no reason for any of these flags to occur during the game and hopefully they can be fixed moving forward.

On a similar note, the Patriots are tied with the San Francisco 49ers for the most "Offensive Holding" calls in the league (8), and second worst in the league in "Defensive Pass Interference" calls (4, behind the Bills' 5). While some of these penalties can't be avoided, they're both drive killing calls.

The Patriots need to improve and they can better themselves by not being so sloppy. It might not fix the offensive line, but it's a start to developing into a championship caliber unit.