Nick Bosa and the Lack of Holding Calls Drawn

By John Turney 

Nick Bosa 
Credit: ESPN

Today, Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area, posted a piece titled, "Shanahan hopes officials improve with holding calls against Bosa."

It details the fact that Nick Bosa has not drawn a single holding call despite the fact he appears to be held with some frequency. Maiocco reported that the 49ers "regularly send video to the league office" to make their case. 

Though it is hard to be sure about any football play from a still shot, one can get a pretty good idea in these shots, but it looks a lot like holding by the tackles.

Credit: ESPN

In the next few weeks, we will see if the video sent to the NFL for review makes any difference on the field.

In this day and age officials just don't call holding that often and the cliche of 'you can find holding on every play in the NFL' is accurate but still, one would expect at least one call on any great pass rusher after four weeks.

For years Aaron Donald has been held multiple times a game and he does not get a lot of calls. Sometimes it happens away from the play, on the backside rather than at the point of attack. Others may have simply been missed by officials. But many times it looks like flagrant holding and it does not get called.

It's an old story. Offensive linemen routinely mock defensive linemen who scoffingly say, "defensive linemen think they are held on every play." Yes, they do. Often they are right.

In the late 1960s, Tom Landry was just as frustrated as Shanahan. He sent a reel of film to the league office that was titled, simply, "Holding fouls against Bob Lilly" but it's not known if it did any good.

Landry contended, like Shanahan, that Lilly was being held far more often than it was being called. Lilly was a dominant player who was often double-teamed and when he was single-blocked it was a tough assignment for a guard, so much so that they had to grab on to keep their quarterback alive. 

Few remember that offensive holding was a fifteen-yard penalty—it was a big risk and could ruin an offensive drive so offensive linemen were coached not to do it. It helped that they could not extend their arms or use their hands.

The NFL, in an effort to open up the game, changed the yardage for the penalty from fifteen yards to ten. Lilly, sarcastically said, "Why not make it five?" Since that rule change took place in 1974 it did not affect Lilly's career very much.

In 1978, in another attempt to open up the game, the NFL liberalized hand usage to the extent that linemen could use their hands and extend and keep extending their arms. There was an intermediate step between 1974 and 1978 that allowed offensive linemen to extend their arms but they had to pull them right back. 

Defensive linemen referred to the 1978 rule changes as the "holding rule". They saw that after the implementation they were being held, in their minds, "on every play" whether they were or not is a matter of debate. Offensive linemen argued that the playing field was leveled in that defensive players were always allowed to use their hands to defend blocks.

There was a time in the 1980s that some defensive linemen draw plenty of holding calls or illegal use of hands calls. 

In 1983 Howie Long said, "I can buy a sack . . .but I lead the league in holding calls." In 1985 in a Washington Post article it was suggested by Broncos right tackle Ken Lanier that Long had a knack for getting the holding calls, "He knows how to draw penalties. He uses the 'rip' where he comes up with his arm under your armpit. . .he comes with his arm straight up under my armpit and when the refs see that they call me for holding."

The year before in the Los Angeles Times, it was reported that Long estimated he drew twenty holding calls but he surmised that if all the times he was held were called the number would have been forty. About one tilt with the Seahawks, "(Jim Tunney) gave me three holding calls. It could have been nine. It was blatant."

In 1986, according to the Washington public relations department, Dexter Manley drew twenty-three penalties with sixteen of them holding calls to pair with his 18.0 sacks and 31 hurries that season. Manley was All-Pro and made the Pro Bowl but one wonders how many sacks and hurries he might have had were it not for getting held so often because it's clear that many infractions are not flagged.

Film/video study shows that from 1981 through 1984 Jack Youngblood drew 80 penalties of various forms—holds, illegal use of hands, false starts on the player over him (John Madden was keen to point out that usually is a player concerned about his assignment)—and two-thirds to three-fourths of those were holding calls.

On note is that for Long, Manley, and Youngblood and all players a few of the called penalties were declined because the defense may have gotten a sack or an interception or recovered a fumble. Still, it was almost always an action by an offensive lineman to prevent a sack or hit on a quarterback and a net positive for the defense.

After a game when a rookie left tackle was called four times for penalties while trying to block Manley, Dan Dierdorf gave the rookie a tip, "You are better off taking the holding call than giving up a sack." But he further explained that a holding call early in a game can cause a lineman to become concerned about getting another and then changing his style and becoming "ineffectual" for the rest of the game. 

But the same can likely be said of giving up a sack early, so it's damned if you do or damned if you don't.

For defensive linemen in this era tales of when a center, guard, or tackle held he'd get called for cannot be of any comfort. Now the holding rules are underenforced and it is with little doubt that this is a calculation by the NFL to not have games slowed and becoming less watchable. 

The NFL's product is wide-open offenses, that is what sells the game, drives fantasy football, and puts butts in seats. No one wants to watch a penalty fest. It seems the only penalties that are strictly enforced are defensive pass interference and defensive holding and that, too, is calculus to keep the receivers from being covered too closely. 

In our view, offense pass interference is the only penalty that is as under called as offensive holding. It's what defensive backs have to live with, the apparent de facto repeal of OPI.

Perhaps Bosa who is leading the NFL in sacks (6), quarterback hits (16), and hurries (30—per PFF) and also having the ole' goose egg in penalties drawn will give the league office some pause and create some fairness for him and the Aaron Donalds and the Maxx Crosbys out there who are whipping blockers' butts and getting strangled rather than getting a sack or hit on the passer.