Palpably Unfair Act – The Rarest Penalty in NFL Football

The rarest penalty in NFL football comes from the “Palpably Unfair Act” rule. In the NFL’s extensive rulebook, at Rule 12, Section 3, Article 4, it says:

“A player or substitute shall not interfere with play by any act which is palpably unfair.”

While discussion around using this rule has been going on since 2016, the usage of this rule is so rare that it has never actually been implemented in the NFL. That’s because it’s to be used after a warning rather than immediately when a player breaks the rules. In addition, it applies to conduct that isn’t specifically listed in the rulebook, but to be called by the referees’ discretion. It’s no surprise that in sports, some teams might do something like committing a foul if it can help them or place the other team in a disadvantageous situation. However, teams don’t do this every single play; rather, they reserve doing something like that to the last moment if the game is close or forego it altogether if there’s no point due to something like a large margin between scores or that one game doesn’t matter in the long run.

According to the rule, if an action is deemed “palpably unfair”, it is up to the referee that called it to apply the proper penalty. Referees are to award the yardage a player would have reasonably gained — including a touchdown if applicable. They also return the lost time on the clock and have the option to eject the player(s) responsible. It’s a reasonable penalty to give when a team resorts to committing penalties instead of playing actual defense for the sake of the game.

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However, due to the structure of the rule itself, it’s never used because teams know when to not foul and incur this penalty. Also, whenever a player does something that isn’t covered in the rulebooks, while some might think they need to be penalized, referees might not give a call, meaning the players can do it again until a call is made as a warning.

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