Quote:
Originally Posted by RichMSN
I've scrubbed a lot of bad rules and mechanics out of my mind. You have a date for these little goodies?
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Not precisely. Fed changed the encroachment rule in 2 stages. During the 1960s (starting i don't know when) it actually depended on how quickly you could whistle! Encroachment killed the ball
except when it was put in play before the official could whistle it; probably led to some slow whistles, and it probably meant that on a free kick offside was almost always an option rather than dead ball enforcement. By the early 1970s that exception was gone. But when they deviated originally from NCAA in that regard I don't know; wouldn't surprise me if it was from Fed's major revisions in the 1940s, such as allowing more than one forward pass per down.
The automatic touchback I'd just have to guess at. Probably between 1945 & 1965. During that period Fed had the philosophy of looking for any excuse to kill the ball, because the players are safer when they're not running around.
I believe there was a still earlier period of automatic touchbacks, pre-1912, which was before Fed existed. But before that period, the ball was live.
The specific rationale given for killing the ball with encroachment was that to practically abolish judgement of dual fouls in scrimmage situations, where one team's player going offside drew an opponent into the neutral zone or induced a false start, or when the player in the neutral zone blocked the view opponents had of the ball and so caused them to go offside that way. Free kicks were made the same way just in the interest of keeping the rules simple, I guess.
Robert