The Holy Roller - What If?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

The jet sweep play often involves a forward shovel pass, so an underhanded forward pass should not be as surprising as it was in 1978.

Underhand forward passes were in substantial use long before then. Single wing playbooks commonly included one or more inside shovel or chest passes. And even in 1975 in the pros, the Cowboys used a couple of different such passes in their newly reinstalled shotgun system -- one flipped forward by a passer fading straight back, the other pitched forward to a trailing back by a passer faking a run around end. I don't think officials are looking for such passes any more or less these days.

In Fed rules, they do have slightly more reason to distinguish a forward pass from handing the ball forward since they limited the offense to one forward pass (but no limit on forward handoffs) per down in this century after about 60 years of not needing that distinction. But they don't have any more need than previously to distinguish it from a fumble.

And when it comes to the jet sweep, they do have a need to distinguish a forward from a backward pass in case it winds up on the ground. The reason a pass is used is that some teams want to take advantage of its becoming an incomplete pass and dead in case they drop it, which benefit they couldn't get if it were handed. But sometimes the pass is such a short distance that it's near impossible to tell whether it went forward or was just tossed straight up. If officials can't tell, are they favoring a ruling of forward pass or backward pass? On one hand, they like ruling balls dead. On the other, if the offense wants to take advantage by not handing the ball to a teammate, shouldn't they have to prove it's forward?