Side Snap Still Legal?

[OKREF]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

And you can't see an official seeing anything like what I described as fitting the requirements? How do you know it couldn't? The rule puts no restriction on any additional things the snapper might be doing with the ball or his body, it sets only the minimum requirements.

I'll give you yet another way: Snapper with both hands on the ball turns around 180 degrees with it by a motion of 1 or both feet, and a back in motion takes it out of his hands at that point. The ball might meanwhile be raised to ankle, knee, waist, or shoulder height. Bonus: At that point the snapper might be a yard back of his line of scrimmage, and thus able to receive an immediate forward handoff from that same back.

If the rules makers wanted to forbid these types of snaps, they could have. For instance, Canadian rules don't share with the American ones the requirement that the ball leave the snapper's hands immediately, but they add the requirement that the snap go between the snapper's legs. At one time Canadian rules outlawed hand-to-hand snapping. So there are certainly ways to specify snapping the ball differently; as long as they don't, the rules mean only what they say, and nothing extra or less.

Snap infraction. This isn't one, continuous motion backwards.