4th down change of possession

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JugglingReferee

I think football has two fundamentals: forward progress and field position. Team A earned field position to the 40 yard line going in, therefore B should start there, not gaining a free 11½ inches of field position, just because it's "easier" to move the chains a few inches, or to keep the same neutral zone.

But the ball is not a point, it takes up space. In determining whether the ball is in goal, any part of the ball counts, but in determining whether a goal is scored, the entire ball must be seen to pass thru the plane of the goal (and not return in NCAA or NFL). The ball is spotted for scrimmage in such a way as to establish a neutral zone. So why should "forward progress" effectively shrink the ball to a point?

The only tricky thing in all this is what happens on a 4th down incomplete pass where the previous spot had been less than the ball's length from the goal line, which it can be if on 3rd down the ball was being carried long axis sideways and just made it out of the end zone. (Can't happen in Canadian football, notwithstanding the 4th down, because they don't scrimmage with any part of the ball less than 1 yd. from the goal line.) Where do you spot the ball for the other team's 1st down? Automatic TD? I asked Brice Durbin at Fed about this in 1980, and he said that's why they instruct their officials when a team just escapes a safety like that, to rotate the ball for the spot so that its back end is out of the end zone. A technically illegal mechanic to avoid a situation not covered by the rules.

However, I have seen in the NFL when a safety was narrowly avoided, the ball's being rotated for the spot in such a way as to put its back end in the end zone. Presumably a half-the-distance penalty in that case would move the front point of the ball half the distance; otherwise it'd be the back end of the ball.

Robert