Yes, you can challenge some calls related to a penalty in the NFL, but you generally cannot challenge most penalty flags themselves, and there are strict limits and recent rule tweaks that matter for 2025–26.

Can you challenge a penalty in the NFL?

  • Coaches can:
    • Challenge certain reviewable aspects of a play that led to a penalty (spot of the ball, catch/no catch, in/out of bounds, etc.).
* Under newer rules being tested/implemented around 2025, challenge specific flagged penalties when the rule set explicitly lists them as reviewable (for example, some safety-related or roughing-type calls), but only if a flag was actually thrown.
  • Coaches generally cannot :
    • Challenge common judgment penalties like most offensive/defensive holding or many types of pass interference, unless the current rulebook for that season explicitly makes that category reviewable (this has changed a few times over the last several years).
* Create a penalty via challenge when no flag was thrown (you can’t say “that should have been holding, throw a flag”).

In plain terms: you can sometimes challenge the ruling tied to the penalty , but you usually can’t challenge just “the ref threw a bad flag” and ask replay to re-referee normal judgment calls.

How the challenge system works

  • Each team starts with:
    • Two challenges per game.
* If both are successful, a team can earn a third challenge.
  • Cost of a failed challenge:
    • The team loses a timeout if the ruling on the field stands.
  • Timing:
    • Challenges must be made before the next snap and generally before the play clock winds down too far, because replay assistance and formal challenges have different timing cutoffs.

So even if a call is technically reviewable, a coach still needs a timeout available, a challenge left, and enough time to throw the flag.

What is and isn’t reviewable around penalties

While the exact list shifts slightly as the league experiments, the basic idea is:

  • Common reviewable elements (can indirectly affect penalties):
    • Catch/no catch.
    • Whether a player was inbounds or out of bounds.
    • Goal line and first-down line spots.
    • Some scoring plays and turnovers (automatically reviewed, no challenge needed).
  • Limited penalty-related reviews:
    • Under 2025 rule changes, certain flagged fouls can be reviewed and overturned if officials clearly misapplied the rule or if video shows the foul clearly did not occur, but only when a flag was actually thrown.
* If officials miss a penalty and throw no flag, coaches still cannot use a challenge just to create a new penalty.

Why fans keep asking about this

  • Many fans (and even some analysts) argue that more penalties should be reviewable because a single bad call can swing a playoff game.
  • The league, on the other hand, worries about:
    • Longer games and more stoppages.
    • Turning every subjective call (like minor contact downfield) into a frame-by-frame video debate.

That is why the NFL has mostly chosen narrow experiments—like allowing review of selected flagged penalties—rather than making all penalties challengeable.

Quick takeaway

  • You can challenge some things related to a penalty and, in the current era, a narrow set of flagged penalties themselves when rules explicitly allow it.
  • You cannot broadly challenge every penalty flag, and you cannot challenge a non-call to “get a new penalty” via replay.

TL;DR: In today’s NFL, “can you challenge a penalty” is a qualified yes—but only for certain flagged fouls and reviewable aspects of the play, under tight limits, not for most routine judgment calls.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.