Pass attempt breaks the plane

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by bsaucer

So it's not considered a pass until the ball leaves his hand?

There are situations in which a forward pass is ruled retroactively to have begun with a forward motion of even part of the arm that has a hand with a ball in it. This is not one of those situations because the ball never became loose, at least according to the initial description. The ball was dead while still in a player's possession.