Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim D
My thought is, since it hardly ever happens, why take it out of the rule book?
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Fed's usual excuse for outlawing rare plays is that officials, not being practiced in administering such situations, might goof.
I believe that was also NCAA's & NFL's excuse for each, just within the past few years, restricting live kicks to being made only from in or behind the neutral zone and before any change of possession. NCAA had decades earlier outlawed the return kick, but not kicking from beyond the neutral zone. Up to about a quarter century ago, Fed had it the other way, outlawing kicks by A from beyond the neutral zone but keeping the return kick legal.
However, the free kick from a fair catch is nearly goof-proof because it's just a choice of another way to put the ball in play, and is administered almost identically to other free kicks. The only tricky part is knowing when that option applies after penalties intervene, as was discussed here recently.
Robert