Intentional grounding with tipped pass

[wwcfoa43]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

But let's just look at the incentives. If a player of the defense tips the ball, that would seem to satisfy the intention of the rule that the passing team put the ball up for grabs. If the defense "saves" an incompletion and it turns out to be complete by the passing team, doesn't it seem that the defense took their chances by tipping the ball as they would with a pass directed anywhere, and therefore that they should not be able to benefit by an intentional grounding call? We already have the anomalous situation in USAn rules of a ball's being tipped by the defense as making players of A eligible to receive a forward pass who would not have been eligible otherwise, so it would seem the rules makers are willing to have the opponents of the passing team be able to "save" the passing team from certain balls that would've been incomplete, so why not also from an intentional grounding penalty?

Robert

We cannot rule this way. If we did interpret that ineligible receivers become eligible when Team B touches the ball and so intentional grounding does not apply if a Team A previously ineligible receiver was in the area then this means that the quarterback could thrown the ball against the legs of the oncoming defenders so long as there was lineman in the area.