Bean Bag Question on Punts
 

Hi Everyone,

Long time baseball guy new to football. Also coming back to this forum after being away for maybe 10 years or so!

Question on punts and the back judge (with a 5 man crew). This question/situation came up tonight in a large state rules meeting:

Punt situation, return man muffs punt and kicking team touches. Back Judge throws down bean bag when return man muffs punt and crew gets confused and thinks its a fumble and all hell breaks loose.

Does my retelling of this make sense and is this an issue? When should a Back Judge be throwing a bean bag on punts? Im a bit confused by the concepts of first touching and PSK spot and the concepts behind dropping the bag on punts. Any help in clarifying this issue for me would be most appreciated.

The bean bag is to mark the end of the kick which is the enforcement spot for PSK. The kick ends when the ball is possessed.

There is no need to bag a muff.

The B needs two bean bags — one to mark the end of the kick, and the other to mark first touching by K. Unless your state proscribes otherwise, it’s a good idea to have different colors.

There's really two times that a B would be throwing the bean bag during the kick: To mark the end of the kick when R possesses it or to mark the spot if first touching if K touches it before R.

So the bean bag shouldn't be thrown for a muff by R, but mentally it is challenging for some to see the muff and do nothing. It's a bit counterintuitive, so sometimes it gets thrown accidently since B's are trained to hold the bag based on the scrimmage kick formation.

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