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Originally Posted by Texas Aggie
So we have a foul, a penalty, and a probable loss of yardage due to the foul. I think one way to look at distance is to compare what it would have been had the flag not been thrown.
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The other way to look at it is if the
ball had not been thrown. I don't think you look at it as a loss of distance due to penalty; the ball was already
there when the foul was committed.
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The problem is that you could look at that in many different ways. Think macro for a second: is the intent of the rules committee, except in specified situations, to make ANY loss of yardage due to penalty no more than half the distance to the goal line?
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Yes, but I don't think they viewed this as a loss of yardage due to penalty.
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The definition of clipping already includes an exception regarding the runner, but the specific rule prohibiting clipping includes that reference again. Thus, there's a bit of redundancy already in the book.
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That's a result of committee work over long periods of time. I was once part of a body that amended its bylaws without realizing we were using an out of date copy, and that the bylaw in question had already been amended years previously to the same end. But it's better when redundancies creep in than when contradictions do!