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Since 1900 it's been illegal to kick a loose ball in American rules, but this is one of those situations where the penalty's not worse than the play. It's 4th down and the ball is loose in your end zone, what do you have to lose?
In Canadian football it's still legal to dribble a loose ball. However, if you dribble a loose ball that's behind your goal line out of bounds in goal, a situation unwary players sometimes think will be equivalent to touching it down for a 1- or 2-pt score, the other team has an option to scrimmage themselves, similarly to Rugby Union where it's a 5 m scrum.
So suppose you wanted to make the American rule more stringent, to make recovering the ball more favorable than illegally kicking or batting it. What would you do that wouldn't make it too great a punishment? The Canadian rule seems too stringent.
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