Forward handing to a lineman

[Jim D]

I agree that this sounds legal. For an offensive lineman to turn and face his own goal line and NOT be at least a yard behind his line would require a pirouette. If he moves at all, it's probably legal.

[Warrenkicker]

I agree with both of your posts and would rule on them that way. However in my last paragraph I get into the wording they are using in the rules about "line." In one part of the rule they talk about the "end of his line" and "behind his line." I suspect that these "lines" were meant to be the same thing when origianally written and thus the lineman must do more than just turn around. Even the rule says that in that both feet must have moved which indicates to me more than just a pirouette.

When they specify the term "behind his line," if they meant to specify that his line was to be his side of the neutral zone then I think they would have said that.

This is just some more funny wording which may have not been meant to indicate what it means to us today. I have never seen this play and hope to never see it.

[Theisey]

Maybe this will help.
The references to "his line" or "the line" are actually two different things.

In (a), his line is the line of scrimmage. So you can hand the ball forward to the snapper, either guard or either tackle if we talk standard balanced formation if he does the 180 and is 1 yard behind the LOS.

In part (b), as long as the player was the END on the line of scrimmage you could hand it forward to him without those additional restrictions of a 180 and being 1 yard behind.
The restrictions in (b) are you can't hand it forward if you are on the end of the line and are the snapper or as it says, adjacent to the snapper who is on the end of the line.

So, if you had an unbalanced formation such as this:

• b.0 LE rT LT LG S rG rE

you could hand it forward to the rE without any of (a) stuff.
But if you had a formation such as

• b.1 LE rT LT rG LG S rE or
• b.2 LE rE rT LT rG LG S

you cannot had it forward to the rE in b.1 or the S in b.2 without complying with the stuff in (a)