The NFL is as close to perfect as a league can get, but its sloppiness with unaccounted for yards grinds on me. For example, in the first quarter of Sunday's Carolina-Atlanta game (a great game, by the way), Atlanta had the ball 2nd-and-10 at the Carolina 48. Carolina was then called for encroachment on consecutive plays.

The first penalty was placed five yards ahead to the 43 and it became 2nd-and-5. Then second penalty, however, was recorded as only FOUR yards and the ball was spotted as 2nd-and-1 at the 39. This despite there being no such thing as a four-yard encroachment penalty.

I've considered all the scenarios that could produce a four-yard penalty in this situation, and nothing makes sense (unless I am missing something major). Two five-yard penalties resulted in only nine yards and no first down. How does that compute? It didn't matter in the grand scheme of things (Atlanta made the first down on the next play), but these kinds of stray yards here and there really irritate me. Watch a game very closely and you'll see unaccounted for yards happen every Sunday in every game in a variety of ways. I don't get why the NFL, a multi-billion dollar organization, is so seemingly careless in this regard. Doesn't it know that fantasy leagues can be decided on a single yard?