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Originally Posted by Jim D
That's my biggest problem with both the women's and the men's league. They decide they have to use NFL rules (with lots of exceptions), but they rely on NF & NCAA trained officials so there is more confusion than necessary. They'd be better off using NCAA or even NF rules, but I guess that doesn't sound as cool.
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Approx. 30 years ago I tried to compile all the minor league football rules I could, and what you write above was true even then. If you asked them, they'd tend to say they used the previous year's NFL rules strictly; then they'd remember, "Oh yeah, except...", and then if you kept the conversation going long enough they'd remember more exceptions, insisting at every stage that was all. The way to do it right would be to incorporate a major rules code by reference and write specific amendments to it; however, many of them only had informally-stated rules departures.
Some of them, however, were systematic. The Northern States Football League stated their rules several ways on paper, as departures from NFL, NCAA, and Fed rules, and recommended officials study their departures from Fed, which were thoroughly described, because they knew most officials were most familiar with Fed rules.
It was interesting to see certain rules that were common to minor leagues only. For instance, many allowed only a 1 point try if from the 2 yard line, but allowed a 1 or 2 point try if snapped from (or behind) the 3 yard line. You'd think they'd all snap from the 3 to preserve the threat, but believe it or not, they snapped from the 2 when kicking the point. Go figure.
Very few minor leagues and associations of same in the USA write their own complete rule books. A few years ago the USFA wrote their own, including as an appendix exceptions for the WPFL. For the men's rules, USFA used NCAA as a base with some from NFL, but didn't incorporate either by reference.
Also a few years ago the IWFL tried writing their own rule book. It was a disaster. Absolutely useless, a joke. They cut & pasted from NCAA & NFL, did the world's worst layout & editing, added a bunch of stuff for further confusion, including regulations that didn't belong in playing rules, and it was full of contradictions and impossible to get answers from, let alone quickly. None of their officials actually used it AIUI; I think they just wanted to say they'd published (Cafe Press) the first rule book specifically for women's football. I didn't see the next year's, but I'm told that while it fixed some things it made others worse. I don't remember if they kept up after that.
IMO if a league wants to write easy-to-understand football rules, they should start with the Fed rules
from 30 years ago when they'd reached the pinnacle of clarity, and modify from there. Of course to keep from messing it up while amending to suit, you might have to resurrect the editors from that era.
As to the substance of women's football rules, for several years we've been getting an experiment regarding the knees. Because of the proneness of women to ligament tears, IWFL has been the most restrictive, prohibiting all blocking below the waist. NWFA has been most permissive, permitting exactly the BBW allowed in NCAA. WPFL has been intermediate, allowing blocking only as low as the thighs, and that low only in the initial line charge by players who are not moving downward, and otherwise no BBW.
Robert