Forward pass doubt
 

Once again, here I am. This time I have a doubt about a penalty enforcement.
And, once again, I am sorry that I'm asking all this doubts about NFL rules in this forum. Maybe you guys will shed some High School light on me and I'll be able to change this rule down here in Rio.

NFL Rule 8-1-Penalty c states:

For a forward pass from beyond the line: Loss of down and five yards from the spot of the pass.

Then, on a Suplemental Note it states:
When a distance in Penalty 8-1-c (the above)leaves the ball in advance of the necessary line, it is first-and-10 for the offense.

So... let's say it's 3rd and 1 for A at B45. A9 scrambles and starts running forward. At B35, A9 launches a forward pass that is complete at B30.
So, the pass happened at B35 and that's your point of enforcement. So the ball will be pulled back to B40.
B40 is beyond the necessary line.

So by commiting this foul, team A won't really be penalized because those 5 yards they lost are not going to matter since As got first-and-10 at B40?

And what happened to the loss of down? At the very least, shouldn't it be second-and-10 for A at B40?

The loss of down penalty is in reference to the fact that most penalties against the offense allow for the down to be replayed. In this case the ablity to replay the down in question is lost due to the loss of down penalty. If we were apply your suggestion and eliminate 1st down in your play the following conclusion would also be required: on A's 3rd and 10 from the A20 with an illegal forward pass at A22 would result in B's ball at the A17.

It's similar to a play where A has 3rd and 2 at A28, A2 runs the ball to the 50. During the run A56 commited a holding penalty at the A41. The penalty would be 10 yards from the spot resulting in the ball being place at the A31. While the penalty would normally include a replay of the down, awarding a new seires of downs overrules the replay of down portion of the enforcement (as it does in the illegal forward pass situation).

This is why there's no 0th down -- and why there should be.

The thing is guys, the point of penalty enforcement is that a team gets what they have gained without the aid of a foul. So, if the foul is far enough ahead of the LTG and they are still beyond the LTG, they still get the 1st down and I don't see how it should be any other way.

Makes all the sense in the world now that you put it this way

But if R1 during a runback throws a forward pass or clips and either penalty is accepted, it's still going to be 1st down regardless of the fact that one is a loss of down penalty. That's why I think they erred in never introducing a 0th down outside of the usual series of downs.

Had a long discussion about this with Scott Taylor in rec.sport.officiating, and he eventually convinced me that you can't say for sure that allowing a team to scrimmage an extra down after a repeat-the-down penalty for a foul by either team during a return is fairer than having them just scrimmage without the extra down or having the other team repeat the down, but I still think there's a good argument for it. I thought a compromise might be allowing the extra down but no forward pass allowed during it, to simulate conditions following COP.

Maybe they'd like to adopt 0th down in Brazilian beach football.

Robert

Do they have women's teams for that??? :D

They only have women's teams for that!

It's funny you mention RSO b/c GarthB from the baseball forum mentioned RSO too. I read RSO 10+ years ago and remember Scott Taylor quite well. My memory tells me that he was among the most knowledgable officials frequenting RSO. I'm guessing that RSO is still going, though with forums like OF.com, Usenet likely gets used little anymore.

We have male teams and we play at the beach. But, yes... there are women's teams down here too. But they don't play wearing bikinis. There should be a rule forcing SOME of the women players to wear it but there's not, yet

I really love football....But....if I lived in Rio, I don't think I'd be officiating.

know what you mean... but there's no way to know

dvasques - you should try to persuade your association to use NCAA Rules rather than NFL Rules. They are the most widely used Rules in the World outside North America. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, S Korea plus the 20 European countries in EFAF all use NCAA rules.

IFAF use NCAA Rules for international games eg the recent World Cup 2007 competion held in Japan between Korea, France, USA, Sweden, Japan, Germany.

Better Rules questions support concerning NCAA Rules from folks on Officiating forums such as this one, REfstripes etc, etc.

Didn't know that when I translated the NFL rules and we decided to use'em. Know better now and I'll start pushing for NCAA rules. Problem is we don't get many NCAA games on TV here. And since most of the players "know" the rules only by watching games, every rule that's different will be a problem. But to make officiating easier I'll face that problem

DVASQUES This link may help you on your way, they seem to be at a similar level to you.

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto_Renegades