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It makes sense for NFL teams to track how the league's 17 officiating crews call subjective or judgment-based penalties such as offensive holding and pass interference, and most do. It could help a playcaller, for instance, to know whether his pass protection will be compromised by a liberal view of holding.

What you might not realize, however, is that the frequency of presumably more-straightforward penalties still varies significantly among crews. The chart at the bottom of this post documents pre-snap movement penalties such as encroachment, false start, neutral-zone infractions and offside -- none of which seem on the surface to have much gray area. You will see that in 2014, the rate of the most active crews is nearly three times that of the least active in these categories.

That's right. Entering Week 9, and not including Thursday night's game between the New Orleans Saints and Carolina Panthers, referee Walt Coleman's crew had called 37 such penalties (accepted/declined/offsetting). John Parry's crew, meanwhile, had called 13.

How can this be? It's true that the NFL's 32 teams possess varying degrees of discipline, and so it's not surprising to know that some games include more pre-snap penalties than others. But officiating crews are cycled throughout the league during the season, and you would think that over time such things would even out.

Instead, smart teams can get at least a credible preview of the type of game they might see called by analyzing these numbers. Say you have a pass-rusher who puts his hand down at or just beyond the line of scrimmage to gain a subtle advantage. Technically, he is pushing the definition of defensive offside or neutral-zone infractions.

If your referee is Jeff Triplette, who has called 12 defensive offside and nine-neutral zone infractions, you are not as likely to get away with it. But you are more likely to avoid such a penalty if your ref is Pete Morelli, who has called three for defensive holding and none in the neutral zone, according to the ESPN Stats & Information database.

The point, as we've been driving home in the weekly Monday Officiating Review, is that there's more gray area in officiating than most of us realize. Even the most clear-cut penalty -- moving and alignment prior to the snap -- is officiated differently from crew to crew.

Note: As always, the bar graph at the top of this post documents the per-game frequency of all penalty calls this season, by crew. Carl Cheffers' crew continues to be the most active at nearly 22 penalties per game.