New York Looks at the NFL Refs Behind the Most Penalties

If you’ve watched even a little bit of football this year, you already know. The flags are flying. Fans are frustrated and the conversation about NFL officiating feels louder than ever. Whether you’re yelling at the TV from your couch in New York or chatting with friends at a tailgate, the word “flag” has probably come up more times than you’d like.

Why Penalties Are Getting So Much Attention

Penalty flags aren’t new, but the amount of them and the inconsistency behind them have been huge this season. People are arguing about everything from how often the games get slowed down to how much certain calls swing the momentum. With some matchups feeling like they’re decided by the whistle instead of the players, you can see why fans are fired up.

Who’s Really Throwing All These Flags?

The team at InGame dug into a decade's worth of data, looking at penalty trends from the start of the 2014 season through the end of the 2024 season. They wanted to see which NFL referees are tossing the most flags and how those numbers shake out, especially for New York’s own Buffalo Bills.

The Refs Who Flag the Bills the Most

If you’re a Bills fan, here’s the part you’ll care about. Between 2014 and 2024, these were the referees who threw the most penalty flags against Buffalo:

Clete Blakeman tops the list with eighty eight flags.
Carl Cheffers and Shawn Smith follow closely behind with eighty six each.
Craig Wrolstad comes in next with eighty one, and Brad Allen rounds out the top five with seventy four.
The rest of the top ten includes John Hussey with seventy one, Alex Kemp with sixty five, Ron Torbert with sixty three, Jerome Boger with fifty six, and Bill Vinovich with fifty five.

If you’ve ever felt like certain refs “have it out” for the Bills, the numbers at least give you something to talk about.

The Refs Who Throw the Most Flags Overall

Looking beyond Buffalo, here are the top flag-happy referees league-wide over the last decade:

Carl Cheffers takes the crown with two thousand four hundred and one flags. Clete Blakeman lands in second with two thousand two hundred and eighty six. Ron Torbert isn’t far behind at two thousand two hundred and thirty seven.

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Craig Wrolstad and Brad Allen round out the top five with totals of two thousand one hundred sixty three and two thousand ninety four. The rest of the top ten includes Bill Vinovich, John Hussey, Jerome Boger, Tony Corrente, and Alex Kemp.

What This Means for New York Fans

If you’re a New Yorker who lives and breathes Bills football, these numbers might make moments from past seasons click into place. They don’t explain everything, but they do add context when you’re trying to make sense of all those yellow flags.

Whether you take this as validation or fuel for more Thursday/Monday night and Sunday afternoon ranting, it’s at least nice to know you’re not imagining things.