Watta ya got video?

[jmaellis]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

That's not what I asked though.

Is there a rule that says a defender's foot isn't set if the heel of that foot is still up in the air? That's what your post is intimating, if I'm reading it correctly. Again, under my understanding of the rule, the foot only has to touch the floor to be set. There is no requirement that I've ever heard of that states that the defender's heel must be down. If there is, please enlighten me. That's all I'm asking.

Yes you did, you asked, "What am I missing?" To which I replied, "I'm not suggesting that you are missing anything."

Believe it or not, not everyone who posts on this board is challenging another person's interpretation of a rule.

You mentioned in your first post that, "I wish that I could freeze-frame that one." Since you didn't know how to do it, I did it, and described what I saw as throughly as possible, frame by frame, taking into consideration everything that I thought might or might not be important. I never said anything about the heel needing to be down before the foot is set.

But, since you mentioned it, I haven't seen anything in the rules that talk about the foot needing to be "set" before LGP is established. What does that mean? How does the foot become "set." (I have been looking at 4:23:1-5).

However, with all that said, since you now have me thinking about it and since I know you are a stickler for strict interpretation of the rules, based upon what the rule actually says, not what it infers, let me offer this for discussion. The rule states that the player must have both "feet" on the floor in order to establish legal guarding position. Feet being the plural of "foot." I looked in the rulebook for a definition of feet and foot .. if it's there, I didn't see it. I went to a medical dictionary and copied the following definition of "foot":

"Foot: The end of the leg on which a person normally stands and walks. The foot is an extremely complex anatomic structure made up of 26 bones and 33 joints that must work together with 19 muscles and 107 ligaments to execute highly precise movements."

So, given that the definition of the "foot", two of which are "feet", is the sum of all the the different parts at the end of the leg, it would therefore mean that, yes, the rule does state that the heel must be down, as must the toe also be down, before LGP can be established.