Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Goodman
It's not a matter of forward progress. The player who wound up with the ball was never moving forward, so how can he have had forward progress? Rather, it's possession of the ball beyond the opposing goal line. I believe that in that case, the word "caught" is to be read in its natural meaning, rather than the technical meaning as in the definition of "catch". I could be wrong, but I think Fed was just sloppy in wording it and that my way was the way they meant it.
We had this also with the situation of a player's catching the ball while off the ground and passing it again before touching the ground. If you look at the definition of "pass", that'd seem to be impossible, but it doesn't make much sense unless you ignore the technicality in such a case.
Robert
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I don't see where the Fed wording is "sloppy". Actually it's pretty clear in the definitions.
Forward Progress - when an airborne player makes a
catch, forward progress is the furthest point of advancement after he possesses the ball if contacted by a defender.
So if he is not contacted by a defender he does not get forward progress. Just because he possessed it over the EZ does not automatically give him a TD. So what's a catch?
Catch - establishing possession of an in flight ball
and contacting the ground
or contacted by an oppopenent in such a way that he is prevented from returning to the ground inbounds while maintaining possession.
So in the OP he made the catch and is awarded forward progress if he is contacted by a defender. If not contacted by a defender, he's made a catch and better try to get back into the EZ because there is nothing in the rules that allows him to be awarded the TD yet.
As for your worries about the pass and an airborne player possessing it and then "throwing" it again, that too is supported by definition under
passing.
Passing A forward pass ends when it is caught...
refer back to the def of
catch, possession of the pass in the air is not a catch and if the player subsequently releases the ball before completing the catch, it is still considered a pass.
Now you could attempt to say the "second pass" was a bat, but since it is ok for an A player to bat a forward pass in any direction, who really cares?