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Originally Posted by Trap
It is a bad rule, because someone gains an unfair advantage from it.
Rules should not be designed for a team to gain an advantage, but the foul be called against them.
My thought is that it be a live ball, with the illegal forward pass as a penalty.
This made me think, what happens if in HS or College a run is past the line of scrimmage and has a forward lateral, the ball is dropped and the defense recovers. Then the ball go back to the offense with an IFP as a penalty?
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this hurts the integrity of the game, thus is not a good application of the rule.
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Unless you throw in the judgement of intent (very dangerous) as someone else mentions on this discussion, this is no different than a QB attempting to throw a forward pass beyond the neutral zone. You don't consider that ball to be live if it is incomplete.
I had a play in a playoff game this year where the quarterback turned to pitch the ball to the running back on a sweep. The running back had gone the other way so there was no one to pitch to. The quarterback's momentum spun him around a little further when the ball came out of his hands but forward. The ball hit the ground before anyone caught it so I immediately ruled incomplete forward pass. Since it was behind the neutral zone there was no illegal forward pass and there was no attempt to avoid a sack so we did not have intentional grounding. Using your logic would you have ruled this a fumble and loose ball even though that is contrary to the rules?