Most Penalized NFL Teams In 2025

The Tennessee Titans were tied for the second most penalties during the 2024 season. Brian Callahan's team didn't want to extend that streak into the 2025 campaign, but they did just that with by tying for the league high with 13 penalties and leading the league with 131 penalty yards in the Week 1 matchup against Denver. 

Tennessee had two penalties in the first quarter, three in the second, four in the third and four in the fourth. Making matters worse, the Titans also had two penalties that were declined in the game. Add it up and it shows why Tennessee earned its spot at the top of the discipline score.

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Bears Face Discipline Challenges Under Ben Johnson

Chicago gave the Titans a run for the money here in its Monday Night Football matchup against Minnesota. The Bears had three or more penalties in three of the quarters of that contest and had another penalty declined. The fourth quarter flags were particularly damaging. One of those led to the Vikings getting a second chance at a two-point play (which they converted) and another turned a Minnesota third down into a first down. 

The Vikings threw a touchdown pass on the next play to take their first lead of the game. Ben Johnson came to Chicago from a Detroit team that kept its penalties under control. He needs to instill some of that into the Bears football DNA ASAP.

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Sirianni's Eagles Crack Top 3

The defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles looked out of sorts in the penalty department in the Thursday night opener against Dallas. It all started with the infamous spitting incident that led to Jalen Carter getting disqualified, but the Eagles had more mental gaffes from there. They were hit with taunting, roughing the passer and unnecessary roughness penalties that all could have been avoided. Add that to three defensive pass interference calls and a delay of game and Nick Sirianni's crew was fortunate to get out of that contest with a victory.

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NFL Teams with Double-Digit Penalties Surge in 2025

Now that we've gone into some detail for the worst offenders in this category, let's put a little perspective on to this Week 1 penalty data. The above chart shows seven teams with 10+ accepted penalties. That was the entire total of teams with 10+ penalties, but how does that compare to the norm?

To put it bluntly, it's an extremely high number of teams in this category. Per Stathead, in the 2024 season there was only one week in which seven or more teams across the league had 10+ accepted penalties. Three other weeks had six teams with a double-digit penalty total.

This vaulted total may be a side effect of the league aiming to more strictly enforce sportsmanship penalties this year. The volume of flags all but assures that unsportsmanlike plays will decrease, but it may take time. Once that effort starts taking hold, look for the flag volume to drop off.

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Methodology

RotoWire.com is breaking down the most penalized NFL teams during the 2025 season, updating on a weekly basis for the most up-to-date stats, to see which teams are the most disciplined. Using TeamRankings.com, we ranked teams based on a discipline score, which is found by taking Penalties per game + Penalty yards per game and dividing it by two. [(Penalties per game +penalty yards per game)/2].