Rules about cheerleaders' actions during play

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by Jeffrey Moon
To Jurassic-- you clearly know the rules better than I, but in your view does this also apply to cheerleader conduct right along (by which I mean, touching the) inbounds line? There's no distance back from the line that cheerleaders have to stay while cheering and dancing? I'm fairly sure that if a bunch of fans had decided to simply come down from the stands and stand along the inbounds line and jump up and down during play, the officials would have had something to say about it....

Fans aren't cheerleaders. It's kinda expected that cheerleaders are gonna inhabit the end lines. As long as we judge that they're not interfering with the actual game in any way, then they can go ahead and cheer their little brains out. It's just a part of the game, and it's been a part of the game forever.