My team has been called for 14 --- 14! ---- offensive holding penalties in the first three games of the season. Not all of those penalties were accepted, but in general, the absurd number is killing my offense.

Here are my biggest offenders:

WR Alfredo "Hines Ward" Hudson with 4: http://mfn19.myfootballnow.com/player/2651
Hudson has 88 Discipline (AND HE'S A WR!)

C Gary "Punch you in the nuts" Orourke with 4: http://mfn19.myfootballnow.com/player/4104
Orourke has 86 Discipline

T Leon "Will start a fight for fun" Shires with 2: http://mfn19.myfootballnow.com/player/4105
Shires has 14 Discipline. I expect a penalty out of him now and then. But even with 14 Discipline he only had 7 last year.

So more than half of my holding penalties have been on guys with high Discipline. And almost a quarter of them were by a WR. Is there any way to avoid this? Or is it just janky code randomness?

Fatigue and experience come into play as well, but it could also be randomness.

I don't think fatigue or experience have much of a factor here. I had forgotten to reset my fatigue rates at the beginning of the season, and so for the first two games, they were set to 25. As far as experience, the three biggest offenders right now have played in my offense for more than two seasons. They should know the playbook and they are at 100 exp for each position. That's why I'm so frustrated with it. I cannot account for it with Discipline, Fatigue, or Experience. If penalties are really this random, there is no point in me valuing Discipline at all in any position.

If penalties are really this random, there is no point in me valuing Discipline at all in any position.[/quote]

I've dropped discipline down for this very reason. Some of my most penalized players are veterans with 100 discipline. I've noticed that game style also has a lot to do with penalties called. For instance, I'll sometimes have a game with 70+ offensive plays while my defense plays against forty+ passing plays. This is an epic combo to rack up both holding calls and defensive pass interference, regardless of team experience or discipline.

I still think there is something flawed with the holding algorithm. I just lost another game this season basically because of holding penalties killing drives. It was one of those games where every point, every yard counts, and I had 6 called holding penalties (not all accepted) to my opponents 2 called holding penalties.

That brings my total up to 34 holding penalties through 9 games -- 34!!!!!

To understand why I'm rightfully pissed off about this number, in the NFL, last year the highest number of offensive holding penalties committed was 27, in 2014 the highest was 21, and in 2013 the highest was 23.

I'm on pace to double all of those. So even if the algorithm is random, I want to know what in my play style is pushing the randomness to calling more holding penalties (a lot more) on my team than on my opponents?

I've been getting an increase in holding calls lately as well, stalling key drives in key games...

LOL. Hey setheric,you need to get some registered trademarks out for those nicknames and start merchandising t-shirts! Laffs,you are sitting on a gold mine with old "punch you in the nuts" there,I swear!

reminds me of Conrad Dobler!

0.02
I also think that 'holds' occur depending on who that player is facing as well, just thinking that they are holding just for the sake of it doesn't add up.

That's a good question. I'd have to go investigate this more.

For what it's worth, it could have something to do with the offensive plays that I call. I had four holding penalties on offense in conf championship in MFN-16. And then one holding penalty while returning an INT.