[Colofornian]

Equating penalties with “cheating” is kind of a stretch. A lot of penalties - illegal motion, offside, delay of game, too many men on the field, illegal formation, etc. - are the result of timing errors, lack of concentration, or simple confusion, not deliberate efforts to obtain some sort of illegal advantage.

Seattle has committed 144 penalties this year. Their opponents 80. Sorry, but the Seahawks (as a winning team) are not that ill-concentrated, confused, disoriented, impulsively jumping the gun, etc. to the degree of almost twice their opponents. (If they were, they wouldn't be where they are).

(But, hey, you get an "A" for a good apologetic try there)

[Steve_Seattle]

"Seattle has committed 144 penalties this year. Their opponents 80. Sorry, but the Seahawks (as a winning team) are not that ill-concentrated, confused, disoriented, impulsively jumping the gun, etc. to the degree of almost twice their opponents. (If they were, they wouldn't be where they are)."

I think Seattle led the league or is among the league leaders in false starts, which involves an offensive player flinching or coming out of his stance before the snap. Those are indeed timing or mental concentration issues, as are the other types of penalties I mentioned, and they can be overcome if a team has enough talent.

[Steve_Seattle]

I looked up the stats on the Seahawk penalties. Nearly half - 65 of 144 penalties - were for procedural things like offside, delay of game, neutral zone infractions, false starts, etc. They were typically well-above the league average in those sorts of things. For the kinds of fouls that people might call "cheating" - holding, roughing the passer, pass interference, etc. - they were typically in the middle of the pack.

By the way, although their game opponents only had 80 penalties called against them, the league average is 110 penalties per team. So it would be as easy to say that officials are biased against Seattle as to say that Seattle cheats more than others. Do teams suddenly play cleaner when they play the Seahawks? I doubt it.