Quote:
Originally Posted by RichMSN
This reminds me of an old saying about the baseball rules -- the rules are written by gentlemen for gentlemen. A finite set of rules for an infinite set of situations and it's up to the participants to play within the spirit and intent of the rules.
I do see this as an ethical problem, personally. Exploiting a loophole that's called a "scrimmage kick exception" when there's never any intent to use this exception for a scrimmage kick situation is ethically shaky, IMO. Especially considering the history of the exception and why it was put in place in the first place.
I had a coach who once, on third down, lined the quarterback up just a bit deeper in the shotgun formation and then screamed like a banshee at us when we didn't flag the defense for roughing the snapper. Same thing. The rule is there so centers don't get hurt, not to pick up 15 cheap yards and a first down.
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I still run into coaches at the youth level who don't understand that rule and actually teach the long snapper to keep his head down in an attempt to draw a penalty. Not only do they disregard a rule to gain an advantage, they disregard the safety of their players. I've even had JV coaches line their punters up 3 to 5 yards deep in order to draw a roughing call. I always let them know that if they are going to try that then I am giving the benefit of the doubt to the defense.