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Originally Posted by ljudge
You may all recall when a covered player who was eligible by number who went downfield and touched a pass it used to be OPI. 15-yards from PS and LOD. When the rule was written that way (for OPI) the foul for illegal touching was a foul that could ONLY be from behind the NZ. So, in the past if a player ineligible by position (or number) touched the ball (not accidentally) behind the NZ the foul was 5 yards from spot of touching and LOD.
Last year (or year before) the Fed has changed the OPI rule to be an illegal touching foul I guess thinking the 15 yards and LOD was to expensive of a foul.
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Not regarding the administration of the penalty and how they Fed communicates it, I'd just like to say this change is stupid split-the-difference thinking on Fed's part. Either an ineligible player's touching the ball interferes with the opponents' opp'ty to play it and they penalize it as such, every bit as much as K's knocking a free kicked ball from the air away from R, or it should be treated as a no-yardage violation, like first touching of a kick, but in this case an incomplete pass. (But then, I also think an illegal forward pass should be a no-yardage violation.) 5 yards from the spot of touching just makes no sense no matter where the spot is.
Robert