What Is a Challenge Flag in Football? NFL Replay Rules

Each team gets two challenges per game. If a coach wins both, the team earns a third challenge, but never more than three total. Each challenge also requires an available timeout to use, and a lost challenge costs one. A team with no timeouts remaining cannot throw the challenge flag at all.

The original call stands and the team is charged a timeout. That is the built-in risk: a failed challenge costs one of the team's three timeouts for that half, which can be devastating late in a close game. This is why coaches weigh the odds and often consult a replay assistant upstairs before throwing the flag.

No. Inside the final two minutes of each half, and at any point in overtime, coaches cannot use the challenge flag. In that window all replay reviews are initiated by the replay official in the booth, not by the teams. This prevents coaches from stopping the clock with challenges and keeps late-game review in neutral hands. If a coach throws the flag in this window, it is a penalty.

Most on-field rulings involving the ball are reviewable: whether a pass was caught, whether a runner was down or fumbled, spot of the ball and first-down measurements, whether a player was in or out of bounds, and scoring plays outside the automatic-review window. Judgment calls such as [pass interference](/what-is-pass-interference-in-football/) are not challengeable as of 2026, after the one-year 2019 experiment ended.

All scoring plays and all turnovers are reviewed automatically by the replay booth — coaches do not, and cannot, challenge them. The same is true for every play inside the final two minutes of a half and in overtime. So the challenge flag only applies to non-scoring, non-turnover plays in the first 28 minutes of each half.

The red flag is simply the standard color the NFL adopted so officials can instantly distinguish a coach's challenge from the yellow penalty flags thrown by officials. When a coach wants a review, he throws the red flag onto the field before the next snap. The color-coding avoids confusion in the split second officials have to react.

Yes. If a coach challenges a play that is already being reviewed automatically, or throws the flag inside the final two minutes or in overtime, his team is penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct and the play is not reviewed as a challenge. Knowing exactly which situations are booth-only is part of a head coach's in-game clock and [two-minute-warning](/what-is-the-two-minute-warning/) management.