Buffalo Rumblings
Here’s our annual look at the Bills’ most-wanted players, with one rising to the top to claim this past season’s crown.
By nearly any measure, the 2024 Buffalo Bills had a very successful campaign. Very successful never means “flawless” though and, as is tradition, we’re here to discuss who had the most and worst hiccups of the penalty variety.
Whether you like the focus on rules, or the extensive table with a large amount of niche data, this is the annual article for you!
The whole goal here is to identify the worst offenders when it comes to penalties and to do so while meaningfully explaining the criteria behind that idea. So, we’ll go slightly more in-depth than to simply say “Spencer Brown had the highest number of flags thrown this season.” I suspect you all likely knew that anyway.
The money here is the table at the end. But in the meantime let’s take a look at a few different ways we can assess the idea of “worst.”
Yes, I know. I already tossed out Spencer Brown’s name. He had 17 flags thrown for various infractions this past season. That said, one was declined and two were offset — meaning only 14 “counted.” If we’re treating this like the most-wanted list it is, you could argue that those three “forgiven” flags don’t matter as much.
If you were to make that argument, then the finger might point toward Dion Dawkins and his 16 flags as being the worst offender. None were offset or declined.
You can peruse the rest of the list below, but it’s a steep drop to number three on the list. Rasul Douglas had 10 thrown, but only six were assessed.
As is always the case, the top-10 list is dominated by offensive linemen and defensive backs. This makes sense as both sets of players are on the field 100% of the time or close to it, and have close scrutiny nearly every play.
Keon Coleman (#10) and N/A (#4) are the only two entries who aren’t OL or DB. For new readers, N/A penalties are things like too many men on the field, or illegal formations that aren’t always assigned to a specific player.
Most sites are going to give you the assessed yards only, but Rumblers know I track yards negated/impacted by penalty as well as what the refs call. I’ll focus on this number as you have a fantastic table to look at things specifically if you want to.
Spencer Brown heads up the list with 180 true or total yards from penalty. That’s 105 assessed and 75 negated. It’s very common for offensive linemen to have extremely high negated yards, as offensive holding flags directly wipe out yards. Compare this to a defensive back and DPI where the biggest flags are often on incomplete passes.
Which is to say that Dion Dawkins being next on the...
