One thing's for sure during a football game – anytime an official throws a penalty flag one team will be angry and the other team will be happy.  This year the NFL observes the 50th anniversary of the gold penalty flag.  

In the early days of the NFL officials would blow a horn at the end of the play when they observed a foul.  But because the fans weren't always able to hear the horn they went to something the fans could see.  The first time a flag was used to signal a foul was in 1948 during a game at Fenway Park between the Green Bay Packers and the Boston Yanks.  The officials tossed 22 red flags that day for a total of 215 yards in penalties.

After a few years using red flags the NFL switched to using white flags.  It wasn't a very good idea because the officials would use their white hats to mark spots on the field, players would sometimes lose their white towels and even white hot dog wrappers blowing across the field would cause confusion.

So in 1965 the NFL decided to equip their officials with gold-colored penalty flags.

There was a lot of gold laundry on the field during a game between the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills in 1998.  The 49ers were called for 22 penalties in that game while the Bills were hit with 12.  The 22 penalties against the 49ers is an NFL record in that category shared with two other teams.

The Bills all-time record for penalties in a game is 19.  It happened twice in team history; in 1985 against Miami and against Indianapolis in 2001.  By the way, the Bills lost both of those games.

 

 

More From 106.5 WYRK