Illegal Forward Pass After Change of Possession in End Zone

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by BktBallRef

There's no such thing as a forward lateral. There are only forward passes and backwards passes. A pitcher fields a bunt and tosses the ball to the first baseman. Does it matter if the ball is tossed underhanded or overhanded? Of course not. It doesn't matter in football either.

It doesn't, but "of course not" takes it too far, because the rule could have been written to make it matter. When the forward pass was first legalized in Canadian football, one requirement was that it cross the line of scrimmage. A few years later they legalized forward passes completed behind the line of scrimmage, provided the ball was not thrown overhand, and that was the way it remained for a good number of years.

If it matters in softball pitching, there's no a priori reason it couldn't matter in football.

Robert