2 Questions about KO's inspired by NE/Balt game

[Bob M.]

Originally Posted by bisonlj

The only thing I could think is they could enforce it half the distance to the goal. Even that would be slightly better than the 20. It would have been a good strategy by NE to try to kick it out of bounds around the 5.

REPLY: Just be careful...awarding the receivers the ball 30 yards in advance of the kick is not an award of penalty yardage. It's simply the designation of a succeeding spot. So the "half-the-distance" rule doesn't apply. Think of it this way--awarding penalty yardage always moves the ball closer to the offending team's goal line. This enforcement moves the ball closer to the offended tream's goal line. That's an indication that we're not awarding penalty yardage here.