What Is Pass Interference in the NFL? The Rule and Why It's So Controversial

Pass interference is a penalty called on a legal forward pass, once the ball is in the air, when a player significantly hinders an opponent's opportunity to catch a catchable ball — by grabbing, holding, or otherwise restricting them instead of playing the ball. Both offense and defense can commit it.

That one-sentence definition is straightforward. What makes it the most argued-about call in the sport is everything downstream of it: a wildly punitive penalty, a judgment call with no bright line, and a 2019 experiment that tried to fix it and made things worse. Here's the rule, in full, and the story of why the NFL gave up trying to review it.

The Rule in Plain English

Under Rule 8, Section 5 of the NFL rulebook, pass interference occurs "when any act by a player more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage significantly hinders an eligible player's opportunity to catch the ball." A few conditions have to be met before that definition even applies:

• The pass has to be legal. It must be a forward pass thrown from behind the line of scrimmage.
• It only applies beyond one yard past the line of scrimmage. Contact within that zone is judged under different rules (offensive and defensive holding), not pass interference.
• The ball has to be in the air. The interference window runs from the moment the quarterback releases the pass until the ball is touched by anyone.
• The pass has to be catchable. If the pass is clearly uncatchable — badly overthrown, in the dirt, out of bounds — contact on the receiver generally isn't interference, because there was nothing to interfere with.

Because both teams have equal rights to the ball once it's airborne, the rule applies symmetrically. A cornerback who tackles a receiver's arms before the ball arrives commits defensive pass interference (DPI). A receiver who shoves a defensive back off him to get open commits offensive pass interference (OPI).

What Counts as Pass Interference

The rulebook doesn't leave "significantly hinders" fully to interpretation — it spells out specific prohibited acts that apply to both sides of the ball once a pass is in flight:

• Playing through an opponent's back to make a play on the ball, rather than around them
• Grabbing an opponent's arm(s) in a way that restricts their ability to catch the pass
• The "arm bar" — extending an arm across an opponent's body to restrict them, rather than playing the ball
• Cutting off a receiver's path through contact, without attempting to play the ball
• "Hooking" an opponent — grabbing and turning them to gain position before the ball arrives

The common thread: contact aimed at the player, not the ball, in a way that actually affects the outcome of the play.

What Doesn't Count

Not every bump between a receiver and a defender is a flag. The rule carves out several situations as legal, and this table is where most fan confusion — and most officiating judgment calls — actually live.

The face-guarding point trips people up because it's a genuine urban legend in the other direction — many fans assume it's illegal everywhere. It isn't. As long as a defender never makes contact, he's allowed to run stride-for-stride with his back to the quarterback and simply block the receiver's sightline to the ball.

The Penalties

This is the single most useful table for understanding why NFL pass interference is such a big deal — and why it gets confused with two similar-looking penalties.

The number that makes DPI unique in football is the missing cap. A defensive back who interferes with a receiver 45 yards downfield doesn't hand the offense 15 yards — he hands them the ball at the spot of the foul, 45 yards down the field, with an automatic first down attached. If a defensive foul happens on the last play of a half or game, the offense also gets an untimed down to run one more play after the penalty is enforced.

Why NFL Pass Interference Is a Spot Foul (and College Isn't)

This is the biggest rule gap between levels of football, and it shapes how defenses actually play. In the NFL, DPI is an uncapped spot foul — however many yards the ball traveled in the air is exactly how many yards the defense gives up. In college football, DPI is also a spot foul, but it's capped at a maximum of 15 yards.

That cap changes incentives. Nearly half of NFL DPI penalties go for 15 or more yards, and the uncapped exposure appears to make NFL defenders more cautious about grabbing a receiver on a deep shot, since a blown coverage can now cost 40, 50, or 60 yards in one flag. In college, where the worst case is fixed at 15 yards, defenders have more reason to gamble on a long pass rather than risk giving up the touchdown — one reason college football sees PI called more often, relative to pass attempts, than the NFL does.

Illegal Contact vs. Pass Interference vs. Holding

These three penalties get lumped together because they all involve a defender touching a receiver, but they're separated by one simple factor: where the ball is when the contact happens.

• Before the pass is thrown: a defender is allowed to make contact with a receiver within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. Beyond 5 yards, any contact before the ball is thrown is either illegal contact (impeding a receiver's route) or defensive holding (grabbing/restricting a player) — both are 5-yard penalties with an automatic first down.
• After the pass is thrown, while it's in the air: the rules shift entirely to pass interference, with its much larger penalty.

In practice, this means the same contact — a hand on a receiver's jersey — can be a minor 5-yard penalty or a game-changing spot foul depending purely on timing relative to the throw. That timing distinction is also what separates PI from roughing-the-passer-adjacent fouls; for more on what does and doesn't draw a flag on the quarterback himself, see NFL Roughing the Passer Rules - What Counts and What Doesn't.

Why It Can't Be Challenged

Pass interference is a judgment call, not a factual one — and that's exactly why the NFL spent one season trying to make it reviewable, then abandoned the idea.

The 2018 no-call. In the NFC Championship Game between the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, with 1:45 left in regulation, Rams defensive back Nickell Robey-Coleman hit Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis well before the ball arrived on what should have been an easy third-down completion. No flag was thrown. Robey-Coleman himself admitted afterward, "I was beat, and I was trying to save the touchdown." Instead of a first down that would have let New Orleans run out the clock, the Saints settled for an early field goal, the Rams tied the game, and Los Angeles won in overtime, 26-23 — advancing to the Super Bowl instead of the Saints. The NFL's own head of officiating later admitted the crew "messed it up."

The 2019 experiment. In response, team owners voted to make pass interference — both calls and non-calls — reviewable for the 2019 season through the normal coach's challenge system. It did not go well. Over the full season and playoffs, only 24 of 102 reviewed PI plays were overturned — about a 23.5% reversal rate — and just 3 of those reversals added a flag that hadn't been thrown; the rest reversed calls already made. Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay later summarized the core problem: "combining a subjective call with a subjective replay process was set up for widespread disagreement." Replay works when there's a factual, verifiable answer — did the ball cross the goal line, was a foot in bounds. Pass interference is a judgment call about whether contact "significantly hindered" a receiver, and holding that judgment to a "clear and obvious" video standard proved almost impossible to satisfy.

Why it stayed dead. No team or the Competition Committee proposed renewing the rule for 2020, and it expired without a vote — what McKay called a "natural death." Pass interference remains outside the modern replay-assist system, too: the NFL's expanded replay assist (introduced for the 2025 season) lets the league office fix clear errors on certain reviewable penalties, but it can only fix a called foul — it cannot create a penalty that wasn't flagged on the field, and pass interference isn't among the fouls it covers at all. If you want the full list of what actually can be reviewed or challenged today, see NFL Challenge and Replay Rules - How Many Challenges Does Each Team Get.

FAQ

Is face guarding legal in the NFL? Yes. A defender can block a receiver's view of the ball without touching him. Face guarding is legal in both the NFL and college football; it's only illegal in high school football.

Can pass interference be reviewed or challenged? No. Pass interference was briefly challengeable in 2019 as a one-season trial. It was not renewed for 2020 and remains outside both the coach's challenge system and the replay-assist process today.

How many yards is pass interference? Defensive pass interference is a spot foul — the ball goes to the spot of the foul with no yardage cap, plus an automatic first down. Offensive pass interference is a flat 10-yard penalty from the previous spot.

What happens if defensive pass interference occurs in the end zone? The ball is placed at the 1-yard line (or half the distance to the goal if the line of scrimmage was inside the 2-yard line), with an automatic first down.

What's the difference between illegal contact and pass interference? Timing. Illegal contact happens before the pass is thrown, beyond 5 yards from the line of scrimmage, and costs 5 yards. Pass interference happens after the pass is thrown, while the ball is in the air, and is a spot foul.

Why doesn't college football use a spot foul like the NFL? College football does use a spot foul for DPI, but caps it at a maximum of 15 yards — unlike the NFL, which has no cap at all.

Does pass interference apply if the pass is uncatchable? No. If the pass is clearly uncatchable, contact on the receiver generally isn't ruled as interference, because there was no real opportunity to catch it in the first place.