2019 Rules Changes

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Jimmie24

I like the new change. There will be some issues with the clock initially. Hopefully they get them ironed out before too long. One that I really liked was the change of illegal formation, where you need at least 5 on the line with no more than 4 back. I believe this will make it easier.

I don't see the point of requiring at least 5 on the line if there's a max of 4 in the backfield...unless there's also to be a change allowing positioning in "no man's land" -- which would be a dumb change! What else did they want to do -- cover cases where a team is playing with fewer than 9, and handicap them further??

Anybody know how many seasons running that tripping the runner had been legal in Fed? It wasn't long IIRC, for values of "long" that this old-timer's used to. Funny the order they choose to present rule changes in this article; maybe they want to live down the fact that legalizing tripping the runner had been a fairly recent change, so they bury the anmt of the change back. Hell, they chose to present some highly technical spec about the numbers on the uniforms above the tripping & horse collar changes!