The Carolina Panthers being called for a delay of game penalty in Madden NFL 2005
In both real life NFL games and Madden NFL, a penalty is a sanction called against a team for a violation of the NFL rules and regulations. Penalties are implemented in a way that discourages teams from going beyond the rules by punishing them, thus improving the integrity of the sport. Penalties will usually result in the offense gaining yards in a defensive penalty or the offense losing yards in an offensive penalty.
The New Orleans Saints being called into a penalty discussion by the refs in Madden NFL 2000. The penalty discussion itself was only seen in 5th gen consoles (PS1, N64) and early pc days.
The term "flag" is generally used by NFL games to alert players of penalties. This term is derived from the fact that a yellow flag is dropped by a referee to signal that a violation has occurred during a play. However, the dropping of the flag is generally not represented in more recent Madden NFL games. Multiple penalties can be called on a single play, and each is represented by a separate flag, or a hat if a referee runs out of yellow penalty flags.
Human players can cause certain penalties. If a user doesn't call a play when the play clock winds down, they would be assessed a delay of game penalty. Also, players can be assessed an encroachment or offside penalty if they are not careful with where their defensive players are positioned before the snap. Other penalties, such as holding, pass interference or false starts, depends on the attributes of individual players. Finally, there are formation related football penalties that do not appear possible in the game. For example, given that Madden NFL only allows users to pass to eligible receivers, it is impossible to commit an ineligible receiver penalty.
When a penalty is called, the offended team has the ability to accept or decline any penalty. The team will almost always pick the option that results in a superior state for them, and usually accepting the penalty will result in a better state for the offended team. An example where the offended team would decline a penalty is if a receiver was interfered with on a touchdown pass. Accepting the penalty would just move the offended team to the spot of the foul, while declining the penalty will result in a touchdown and thus immediately gaining points.
Referee usually do not call all penalties. One can modify penalty sliders to control the frequency a referee calls a penalty. These penalty sliders also control the aggressiveness a player runs their routes; higher slider settings lead to more aggressive players which, in turn, leads to a higher likelihood a player will be called for a penalty.[1][2]