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Originally Posted by jjrye22
So it is a blocking assignment... It is blocking... It is below the waist... Doesn't that answer your original question?
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No, no more than a coach's designating a player as "tight end" makes that person a line player according to the rules.
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Trying to argue that it is not blocking because the O player is in a strange position is trying to split the hair way too fine. The O player wants to block the D player(s) and the initial contact is below the waist.
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I think so too, but not that it's trying to split a hair too fine, and not because the O player is "in a strange position". It's not obvious to me the way the provisions in the various codes referring to "contact" and "blocking" are written.
If I look only at the way the player is trying to gain advantage, the analysis comes out one way. The advantage of the shoeshine block is twofold: having the blocking player in the path of possibly two opponents rather than one; and getting the blocking player quickly into a position that the player probably could not reach with, say, a "reach" block or other technique that would keep hir on hir feet. The fact that the blocker winds up so low is not actually an advantage, and in fact is a disadvantage because opponents can jump or step over the blocker.
However, if I look at it in terms of safety, it looks
mostly the same as if the blocker actually projected hirself below the waist of the opponent. The danger to the knees is a bit less because if and when the opponent makes contact, that opponent's leg is probably not going to have its foot on the ground, so that knee's ligaments won't be subject to the same kind of leverage. However, the opponent who trips is likely to fall on top of the blocker, and in so doing may well have the
other foot caught on the ground while the leg hits the opponent, which does endanger those ligaments.
But simply trying to parse the rules in the various codes referring to "contact" and "blocking" doesn't clarify.
Robert