Flag football referee pocket card

What's on the card

• Front: every penalty in the IFAF rulebook, grouped by what it costs: 10 yards with loss of down or an automatic first down, 10 yards, 5 yards with loss of down, loss of down only, 5 yards, and a charged timeout. Each one shows the official signal number and the spot it's enforced from.
• Back: the numbers refs forget mid-game: half length, timeouts, the clock rule, the 25-second play clock, downs, the pass clock, rushing, when the quarterback can run, no-run zones, scoring, the mercy rule, overtime, half-distance and ejections. Then the coin-toss procedure.
• Your house rules: if you've built your league's rules with our house rules builder in this browser, they print on the back as H1, H2 and so on, and any essentials they change are crossed out and marked. Without them, the back has blank lines to write your rules in.
• Signals card: a second card with all 21 IFAF referee signals drawn out, each with its S number, and on the back how to give each one. It's what the S numbers on the penalty card point to.

How to print and laminate it

1. Click Print or save PDF and set the scale to 100% or Actual size. "Fit to page" shrinks the card.
2. Check the 1-inch square with a ruler.
3. Cut out the cards along the dashed lines (two per page).
4. Put each card's front and back together in a standard 4×6 in laminating pouch and run it through. No laminator? Packing tape on both sides works for a season.

Our lamination guide covers pouch thickness and no-laminator options in more detail.

Frequently asked questions

What are the penalties in flag football?

Under IFAF rules, pass interference, illegal contact and game interference cost 10 yards plus a loss of down for the offense or an automatic first down for the defense. Unsportsmanlike conduct is 10 yards. Illegal runs, illegal passes and handoffs, jumping, diving and flag guarding are 5 yards plus loss of down. False starts, offside, illegal rushes, shielding, illegal flag pulls and substitution fouls are 5 yards. Delay of pass is a loss of down.

What does BS, SF, SL and DB mean on a penalty chart?

They are enforcement spots. SF is the spot of the foul. SL is the previous line of scrimmage. DB is the dead-ball spot, where the ball became dead (dead-ball fouls are enforced from the next snap). BS, the basic spot, is usually the line of scrimmage, but an offensive foul behind the line is enforced from where it happened and a defensive foul on a play that ends past the line is enforced from where the play ended.

What is the half-distance rule?

No penalty can move the ball more than half the distance from the enforcement spot to the offending team's goal line. Near a goal line, a 5 or 10 yard penalty becomes half the distance instead.

Does this card work for NFL FLAG leagues?

Not yet. It uses the IFAF rulebook, the international rules for 5v5, 7v7 and beach flag football. NFL FLAG penalties and enforcement differ, and we will only add them once every line is checked against the NFL FLAG rulebook.

Is anything uploaded?

No. The card is built in your browser. If you include house rules, they are read from this browser's own storage, where the house rules builder saved them.