Pass interference happens when a defender or receiver illegally restricts an opponent’s chance to catch a forward pass. That has to happen before the ball arrives. Defensive pass interference is one of the costliest penalties in football, with no yardage cap at all. Offensive pass interference costs the offense exactly 10 yards and the down.
Both fouls only apply to a pass that’s actually catchable. Both disappear the moment any player touches the ball. What counts as illegal contact and why the NFL stopped letting coaches challenge these calls can trip up even longtime fans.
What Is Pass Interference in NFL Football? Offensive vs. Defensive
Pass interference covers any contact that goes beyond what’s needed to legally defend or make a play on the ball, one small corner of the sport’s full rulebook. Officials judge it with a simple question. Was the player playing the ball or restricting his opponent instead? Contact alone doesn’t draw a flag. Contact that prevents a fair chance at the catch does.
Defensive players get one extra allowance receivers don’t. Incidental contact within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage is legal, under the separate illegal contact rule. Past that window, defenders have to play the ball, not the man, once a pass is in the air.
Defensive Pass Interference: The Costliest Penalty in Football
Defensive pass interference is a spot foul. Officials place the ball exactly where the contact happened, even if that’s 40 or 50 yards downfield. A foul in the end zone sends the ball to the 1-yard line instead. Either way, the offense gets an automatic first down.
That uncapped yardage is exactly why the penalty carries so much weight. A single defensive holding or a badly timed grab can hand an offense more yardage than an entire successful drive normally produces.
Offensive Pass Interference: When the Receiver Is at Fault
Offensive pass interference costs the offense 10 yards from the previous spot, plus the loss of a down. That penalty stays fixed no matter where on the field it happens. It usually comes from a receiver pushing off a defender to create separation. It can also come from a route designed to pick off a defender covering someone else.
The fixed 10-yard number stands in sharp contrast to the uncapped defensive version. A missed 50-yard defensive call costs a team far more than a called offensive one ever does. That gap shapes how aggressively defenders are willing to gamble late in a route, and it’s part of why college football penalizes the two fouls differently than the NFL does.
Is Pass Interference Reviewable? The Short-Lived 2019 Experiment
Pass interference isn’t reviewable today, and it hasn’t been since 2020. The league tried it for exactly one season first. Owners approved a one-year experiment in March 2019, letting coaches challenge both called and missed pass interference penalties. That change came as a direct response to a single missed call the previous January.
The experiment failed almost immediately. Officiating leadership struggled to define a consistent standard for overturning calls. Coaches grew frustrated watching similar plays get ruled differently week to week. The league scrapped the rule entirely after that one season. A fresh proposal at the March 2026 owners’ meetings tried to bring back a limited version, but it didn’t pass either.
One narrow exception still applies. Whether a pass was tipped before contact is a reviewable fact, since pass interference legally cannot apply once any player has touched the ball. That single detail can still get checked on replay, even though the interference judgment itself can’t.
The Play That Started It All
The 2018 NFC Championship Game is the reason pass interference review existed at all, even briefly. Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman hit Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis well before a pass arrived late in the fourth quarter. It was a textbook defensive pass interference foul, one that would have handed New Orleans a first down inside field goal range. No flag came. The Rams escaped, forced overtime, and won the game. They advanced to that year’s Super Bowl instead of the Saints.
Offensive pass interference has its own infamous missed call. During the 2012 “Fail Mary” game, replacement officials ruled a disputed Seattle catch a game-winning touchdown on the final play against Green Bay. The league later admitted the receiver had pushed off a defender on the way to the catch. That foul should have ended the game as a Packers win instead. The play helped end that season’s officials’ lockout within days.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the penalty for defensive pass interference in the NFL?
It’s a spot foul with no yardage cap. Officials place the ball where the contact occurred, or at the 1-yard line if the foul happens in the end zone, and the offense gets an automatic first down.
What is the penalty for offensive pass interference?
A fixed 10 yards from the previous spot, plus loss of down. That penalty doesn’t change based on field position, unlike the defensive version.
Can pass interference calls be reviewed by replay?
No. The NFL tried a one-year experiment in 2019 after a controversial missed call, then eliminated pass interference review entirely starting in 2020. A 2026 proposal to partially bring it back also failed to pass.
Why was pass interference review removed after just one season?
Officiating leadership couldn’t establish a consistent standard for which plays deserved an overturn. Coaches grew frustrated as similar contact got ruled differently from week to week, so the league scrapped the rule.
What play made the NFL create pass interference review in the first place?
A missed defensive pass interference call in the 2018 NFC Championship Game between the Rams and Saints. The non-call helped send the Rams to the Super Bowl instead of New Orleans, and owners approved reviewable pass interference two months later.
Does pass interference apply once the ball has been touched?
No. The foul legally cannot apply after any player touches the pass. Whether the ball was tipped remains one of the few pass interference-related facts officials can still check on replay.
What is pass interference in NFL football, boiled down to one idea? It’s contact that costs a receiver a fair shot at a catchable pass, offense or defense, with two very different price tags attached. The uncapped defensive penalty and the fixed offensive one shape strategy on nearly every deep throw. The officials calling it still can’t lean on replay to get it right, though, no matter how much a missed call once cost the Saints.
