NFL analyst's comments suggest the Lions' proposal for a new rule is to protect Terrion Arnold
The NFL's annual league meetings are taking place in Palm Beach, Florida next week and we will be in attendance for those meetings by the way. The big thing for the Detroit Lions this year is that they have proposed multiple rule changes once again. Their proposal for a change to playoff seeding sticks out, […]
The NFL's annual league meetings are taking place in Palm Beach, Florida next week and we will be in attendance for those meetings by the way. The big thing for the Detroit Lions this year is that they have proposed multiple rule changes once again.
Their proposal for a change to playoff seeding sticks out, but it's their proposal to end automatic first downs on defensive holding penalties that is really getting a lot of conversation around it.
The Athletic's Derrik Klassen gave the rule a name on The Athletic Football show this week. He called it "The Terrion Arnold rule." The idea is that because the Lions play so much man-coverage, they're the team that's committing these holding penalties the most and because of that, Terrion Arnold is getting these calls a lot.
That's not totally accurate, but there are some truths there. The Lions do play man coverage more than any team in the league, but they weren't the big defensive holding team last year. They and the Chargers did get called for it 13 times, but the Packers, Ravens, Texans, and Dolphins all got called for it more.
So while the hosts joke that the Lions aren't the best team to deliver the message that the league needs to change this rule, there are clearly worse teams that could have done it.
In terms of Terrion Arnold, he got called for defensive holding three times in 2024. That's not really a lot, but it's not a little either. There's likely some confusion there because early in the season, Arnold was the league's most penalized defensive player. He had eight penalties in the first four games. Most of those were defensive pass interference.
After that, he had two penalties in the next 12 regular season games. That's a pretty solid improvement and it makes the early part of the season look like an anomaly.
At the end of the day, the rule is dumb, and both hosts agree that it should change, but it's not really the Terrion Arnold rule. If anything, it's the Sauce Gardner rule. He's the one who led the league in defensive holding last year with four. Packers cornerback Keisean Nixon also had four.
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