Safety or Penalty

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by jal-81

This actually happened last Friday night in a playoff game
B intercepts a pass at their own 6 ~ he circles back into his own end zone ~ A attempts a tackle. B is standing with both feet in the end zone - reaches out so that the ball is completely outside the goal line plain and throws an illegal forward pass.
Ruling??

How do you know this is what the official saw? Seems exceedingly unlikely, given a normal throwing motion where the ball is above and slightly behind the player's head.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by MD Longhorn

How do you know this is what the official saw? Seems exceedingly unlikely, given a normal throwing motion where the ball is above and slightly behind the player's head.

That may be a normal throwing motion for intended forward passes. However, what's the likeliest scenario here, given that we have no other details about the play? That he was playing "razzle dazzle" & thought he could hit a teammate downfield? More likely he was trying to pass to a teammate across the field, intending a backward pass, in which case it's likelier the ball was brought in front of the passer for a throw across the body.

Regardless, the end of the run is where the passer gave up possession. Maybe that's where the ball left his throwing hand, or maybe you could rule that he lost possession at some earlier time in his arm motion. Depends what you consider "held or controlled".