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Reducing Penalties - Mike Westoff\'s Penalty Prevention System

by: Mike Kuchar
Senior Writer, American Football Monthly
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How Mike Westhoff Turned the Jets into the Least Penalized Team Over the Last Eight Years

It only takes about three minutes before Mike Westhoff gets to the tape. Like a proud father, the New York Jets special team coordinator is moving his red laser up and down the surface of a 42” TV in his office in Central New Jersey. “Did you see that block? Watch him snipe him here. That’s football for you,” he grumbles between bites of a banana. “A kick returner has to be explosive and has to see things at the last minute. Some of them, like Leon, just make it look easy.” The Leon in question is the Jets’ kick returner/punt returner/running back Leon Washington, the heart and soul of Westhoff’s special teams units and among the brightest young stars in the league.

As enjoyable as it was, watching a personal highlight of Washington wasn’t the purpose of our meeting. Clip after clip, Westhoff’s blocking units on punt return and kickoff return were shielding off defenders, creating what looked like craters in the opposing units. Westhoff drew my attention to the clean, yet aggressive play of the Jets special teams squads. For the last eight years of his tenure, they’ve been the least penalized in the NFL. In fact, since 2001 the Jets as a team have finished either first or second in penalties six times. It’s not by accident. “We want to establish an image that we know the rules but we are going to be aggressive and we are going to do it right,” said Westhoff. “If you visited an offense or defense around the league with those numbers you’d probably want to know what they’re doing.”


What they’re doing is what Westhoff calls preventing penalties. It’s a system he devised years ago while working with NFL legend Don Shula that encompasses everything there is to know about penalties – from learning the intricacies of every call to educating players to scouting officials. It’s time-tested and proven – the numbers speak for themselves. No other team in the NFL has been penalized less than the Jets, and that includes both sides of the ball. What’s more is that it’s a system that can be tweaked and utilized to fit any level of football and one that any coach can consider implementing.

Phase 1 – Research
They say experience is the best teacher, and this certainly rings true with Westhoff. A veteran coach in the league for 27 seasons, Westhoff learned to appreciate the rules during his 15-year tenure with the Miami Dolphins, part of which was spent observing one of the game’s greats – Don Shula. “Don was on the competition committee that worked directly with the NFL officials and he shaped a lot of the modern day NFL rules,” says Westhoff. “I learned a lot from him and respect him because he did it correctly without taking away his team’s aggressiveness. He took extra time to understand the rules of the game and how officials were being taught and then carried that back with him to instruct the players.”


When Westhoff came to the Jets in 2001, one of his first orders of business was to visit the NFL’s offices on Park Avenue in New York City to pick the brains of the brightest officials in the league. “I took it upon myself as a challenge to go there and sit down with Mike Pereira (the NFL’s Vice President of Officiating),” said Westhoff. “I would sit with him and talk about things and ask specific questions about how they called their fouls. I’d ask how they were being taught. I did it numerous times. I don’t think anyone else did because they didn’t have the access that I had or the proximity.”


Pereira’s first year as the head of officiating was Westhoff’s first year with the Jets, so the two developed a professional, yet not always cordial relationship. Westhoff remembers throwing the phone at the wall once after one of their debates on a particular call. “But I persisted in finding out everything I could about rules and violations, so much so that they probably had my number on speed dial up there in New York. I would hop on the Long Island Railroad and go up there and ask how we could get better.” Pereira says Westhoff’s persistence made him a pioneer in the field of studying penalty calls. “We’ve never had any other coaches from around the league with his persistence in getting things right,” said Pereira. “Special teams play is so broad, so much can happen on every snap that you almost have to be cognizant of every penalty – they encompass both offensive and defensive infractions. It’s just like a fourth down play. Mike wanted to see how our guys officiated, to see it through our eyes. It was because of Mike’s effort that I really took an interest in special teams.” When you get officials assessing their own calls, it’s always a good thing.

Phase 2 Educating the Players
Westhoff would come back from the city with a tremendous amount of information to share with his players. Not only did he know the rules, he knew how and why officials enforced them. He held seminars at the Jets facility to educate veterans on rule changes and rookies on the differences between collegiate and professional rules. “During camp I would do a presentation and we would bring in officials from the league to do the same,” said Westhoff. “Our guys began to get an idea of not so much a specific rule, but how officials would call it. We would try to get other coaches to integrate rules into their teaching methodology in their meetings. For example, if I’m a defensive back coach teaching press technique, I should be incorporating the five-yard legal jam rule and what exactly these officials are looking for.”


It was the specifics of what officials were looking for that Westhoff focused on. “We would go into how officials were taught to call things. Take holding, for example. Grab or hit anywhere in the helmet or facemask area and it’s instant holding. Pull them down, and there is no room for negotiation. Reach beyond the framework of the body and it’s pretty close to an instant flag unless I get my hands inside eventually. But if I’m holding you inside and I’m running with you, I won’t get called as long as I keep my feet in good position and I don’t lunge. Officials are taught to have a time clock in their head to say ‘hold, hold, hold, let him go’ and there won’t be a penalty as long as we push the defender away when we start to get out of position with our feet. It’s just like a block in the back call which we see a ton on special teams. As long as the contact is on the side with the head in front it used to be okay. Now it has to be totally in front. We teach now if you can’t get your head in front just don’t block him, shield him from the ball. We call it ‘getting in the middle of the road.’ If I can’t get my head clearly in front, just gear down, get up the field, shield him and push him. It’s little things like that that we try to analyze. You’re teaching your guys the parameters of what the officials are looking for. What you can get away with, what you can’t get away with, and what you might get away with.”


Westhoff points to a playoff contest five years ago between the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers where a simple understanding of the rules could have resulted in a playoff win for the Giants, advancing them to the next round. The Giants were lining up to kick a field goal on third down when an errant snap cost them the game. “The guys have to know that you can’t spike the ball unless you are under center so the holder can’t just get a bobbled snap and spike it,” said Westhoff. “What you want to do is get the ball and throw it at the legs of the closest wing on the PAT team because he is an eligible receiver. Then it’s fourth down and you can do it all over again. We practice those situations all the time.”

Phase 3 Bring the Officiating to You
After teaching how to avoid infractions and having players demonstrate proper technique (Leon Washington has to show the proper signal for a fair catch to the rookies every year), Westhoff took it to the next level by enforcing penalties in practice. “One of my favorite Don Shula quotes was ‘if it happens on Thursday in practice no problem, but if it’s happens on Sunday at 2:00 don’t come back to the sideline’,” said Westhoff. So Westhoff went back to New York and requested that officials come and work the Jets practices. “When I was with Herm Edwards, we set up a program by bringing in two officials to work our practices. We started with two NFL veterans, Tony Veteri and Joe Yacovino. At the time, Tony was a retired official who worked two Super Bowls and Joe used to run the clocks at the Meadowlands during playoff games. We had them officiate the practices and look for specific violations. We also would work our practices with the clocks going. How can you not expect to get better when you got a guy running your clock like Joe, who used to work NFC Wildcard games?”


The Jets practices often became a springboard for prospective NFL officials trying to make a name for themselves. If they were tough enough to handle Westhoff in their ear, they were tough enough to make it in the league. “The younger guys would get really into it. We would come in my office after practice and say ‘what do you think of this’? Or ‘what was that call about’?” said Westhoff. “So in practice we needed to make sure that we were precise with everything. If our receivers were lining up incorrectly, those guys would flag us on it. If that helmet was supposed to be breaking the belt of the center than it had better be or they were getting flagged. If the fair catch signal wasn’t clear by our returners, the refs were all over them. It had to be clear above the head and it had to move, not a shield from the sun. If we were storming down on punt coverage, we would work to not interfere with the returner’s right to catch the ball. We would squeeze him a little bit but make him catch the ball or we would be flagged. We would call it tough in practice and let the refs work their thing. The players would get frustrated, but it was making them better. They learned. It got to a point this past season where (Jets CB) Darrelle Revis was constantly asking questions to them after practice. (Former Jets WR) Laveranues Coles catches a ball and they’ll throw a flag and he’ll get right in the refs face. The point is to understand everything you can. When the officials come in here they know that we’re trying to do it right and that we respect them. Sure some teams bring in refs to a degree but we try to get the best guys available and really interact with them. I’ll bring them into my position meetings and show them clips and ask them a bunch of questions. That may be the difference.”

Phase 4 Scouting the officials
Every Wednesday during the season, crew assignments are issued for the following Sunday’s games. While some coaches may glance at the list and discard it, Westhoff uses it as yet another learning tool. He studies it because he knows better than anyone that those officials may have a role in whether the game is won and lost. So much so that Westhoff compiles a study of officials that have worked recent NFL games. He knows what they love to call and what they don’t call. Crews are consistent and are creatures of habit – they like what they like. “We put together a book on studies. You look at a guy’s crew and what his crew has done in the past. We get a statistical analysis of where this crew ranks in types of penalties. For example, if you play Ed Hochuli’s crew you’d better be prepared to be there for a while, because his guys pull the trigger. We’re just trying to make our guys aware; we’re game planning the officials. If I know a crew is a bunch of veterans and a no-nonsense crew, they are going to throw personal fouls because they don’t want the excessive celebration. So you tell your guys ‘use your head’. Don’t push or shove after plays; they will throw you out. If you’re an offensive lineman and you have a crew that is going to call holding penalties you’d better be working plenty of those during the practice week. You specialize in that area”


Just as a defense would prepare for offensive tendencies, Westhoff prepared his troops for the tendencies of the officiating crew. During practice, he worked hard on the violations that are commonly called and less on those that are rarely called by those specific crews. “We had a game a few years ago when we had a crew that rarely called offensive pass interference, just defensively. One of our receivers knew about it and we wound up scoring the winning touchdown on what seemingly could’ve been called a push-off. It even ties into instant replay. We look at what that crew looked at during the year. We would look at something during the week and if there is no sense challenging it because they won’t reverse it, then we wouldn’t challenge it. It was all based on what they did during the year. Some guys never overturn certain things.”

Implementing a Penalty Prevention Program
While Westhoff concedes that a high school or small college may not have the connections or resources to implement an extensive penalty prevention system such as his, there are some basic recommendations that every program can follow. Take the time to read the rule book, keep up with the newest provisions and find a way to have officials come to practice. “Get a guy who is a Pop Warner official and pay him a couple bucks an hour,” says Westhoff. “There are probably a lot of guys out there that want to do it. Get a parent to come and volunteer to work the practices. If they don’t know the rules, educate them. Do it the best you can to your needs and your means. Whatever level you are doing, try to tailor your specifics to whatever needs you have and whatever means you have. We try to control the penalty aspect of the game as much as we can. It’s helped me become a better coach because now I understand what the officials are trying to do.”






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