4th down change of possession
 

Casebook 5.3.3 discusses how the ball is placed after 4th down and a change in possession. From what I understand the ball is placed as it was prior to the 4th down play on a pass. On a run the foremost point of the ball now becomes the rear point of the ball for the new offensive team. The line-to-gain chains would move accordingly to the foremost point of the ball in the new direction.

Is this correct? Or am I missing something?

You are correct, however this is rarely done correctly. Most crews will move the ball and keep the chains set where they are just because it's easier.

Jim

Thanks for the confirmation. Seems like an awfully complicated way to explain that the ball stays where it is and only the chains should move.

Canadian Mechanic
 

CANADIAN MECHANIC:

The LS is the tip of the ball closest to B's goalline, with the rest of the football is in A's backfield. After a last-down incomplete pass, the Referee shall pivot the ball 180º around said football-tip, such that the LS doesn't change. The rest of the football shall now be in B's backfield, which becomes the new team A because of the change of possession.

So then in the US, the LS actually changes on a 4th-down incomplete pass?

Play: The tip of the football is at centre-ice: right in the middle of the 50 yard stripe (equidistant from both goallines). On 4th down, A throws an incomplete pass. (Let's say that the ball is 10 inches in length, therefore the back tip is at the 49 yard, 26 inch line.)

Ruling: When B takes over on downs, is the tip of the ball for forward progress now the 49 yard, 26 inch line, or does it remain, as it should, at the 50 yard line?

The defense is awarded 11 1/2 inches for the play.

Nothing really complicated at all..

Just as the case book states.. you place the ball back to the exact spot
is was. Same as you would do if it were any other down on a play that resulted in an incomplete pass.

It takes all of five seconds to re-adjust the chains while the teams are in process of exchanging there offense/defense.
Sure it only buys the new offensive team 11 or so inches, but it's the correct mechanic to follow and it should be followed.

Usually the US gets things correct, when it comes to rules, etc. I often look to how the NFL does things/what when through their mind to design mechanics, etc, but this ruling has got to be the most inconsistent thing I've ever read in any sporting adjudication.

This usually gets handled in the NFL just like it does in high school. After a 4th down incomplete pass where the nose of the ball was on the 40 going in, the ball is next placed with the nose of the ball on the 40 going out and the chains don't move. Technically this is incorrect, but I can't remember the last time I saw it done according to the book.

The neutral zone stays the same, A's leading edge of the ball is B's trailing edge and vice versa.

Given only the leading edge of the ball matters for a TD, it makes sense.

Crews I've worked on make the switch with the chains. It is called football and not inch ball, but this one is easy to get right.

You forgot first downs. ;)

I realize that I'm Canadian, and didn't grow up with the American game, but it doesn't make sense.

Football is in fact a game of inches. Two recent professional cases in point: Tyree's catch - an inch more and he doesn't catch that ball, and NE completes a season that could never be topped. There was a team a few years ago that was stopped about 18 inches short of the goalline for a Superbowl win.

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.

I think it is easier to flip the ball around than to relocate the chains. In my warped little mind, it makes more sense to move the chains. This way, the ball's physical location on the field never changes.

It's not the line of scrimmage that dictates the position of the ball, it's the ball that dictates the line of scrimmage. Assume A has the ball on B's 6-inch line. They thrown an incomplete pass. B will take over on downs. If you flip the ball around so the forward point of the ball is on the 6-inch line half of the ball will be in the end zone.

None of the crews I know of move the ball instead of the chains. 99% of the time you're moving the chains anyway. How often does the offense run 4 plays and lose the ball on downs without gaining any yardage?

The linesman should be giving the spot, or at least verifying that the chain crew is in the correct spot anyway.

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

Yet another problem with US rules. ;)

So to prevent dealing with this situation, the rulesmakers simply give B free yardage.

2 possibilities
 

I think there are two potential perspectives:

1) The ball itself establishes the neutral zone and after 4th down and an inc pass, that neutral zone is unchanged. B (now A) has gained nothing in terms of the neutral zone. This also avoids the safety in the case where rotation around the leading point of the ball would cause the length of the ball would intersect the goal line. Plus in effect the ball was 49.9 yards from the goalline for B, the rotation has move it to 50, B loses yardage.

2) If the leading edge it what "A" has gained, then "B" would gain the ball length, unless the ball is rotated arounfd that leading edge. The issue in this case would be the ball close to the goal line and associated safety.

So if we look at it from the perspective of the established neutral zone being what "A" has gained vs the leading edge of the ball, we go with #1.

I look at is as neutral zone establishment, and see the logic in avoiding the safety. I don't know Canadian rules, so if you do start from no closer than the 1, then the ball rotation safety could be avoided, and using the leading edge and rotation works, without that start from the one it wouldn't.

So if we rotate B can be seen to lose the ball length vs your argument that they gain without rotation.

As I see it the ball has a length and there are in effect two lines of scrimmage, one for A and one for B, replacing the ball back in the same position keeps both of these lines the same, rotation moves them.

I'd counter that the ball didn't move at all. Nobody gained anything...except maybe possession. ;)

That last case is not the problem. Team A's line can be in their end zone, and as I've written I've seen the ball spotted like that in the NFL. No safety is awarded on the ball's entering the end zone while dead.

The problem is the apparent touchdown when a team with the ball so spotted on 4th down throws an incomplete pass. You can scrimmage with A's line in their end zone, but not B's.

Also not a problem; see above.

Robert

The linemen and where they can be set to be considered "on the line" may be in the end zone, but the line of scrimmage for either A or B can never be in an endzone.

Why not, if the back of the ball is there? 1D: A1's run ends with the ball being held with its long axis parallel to the yard lines, and the entire ball just barely out of the end zone. When you ready it for play for 2D, you put its nose at the foremost point when the runner's progress was stopped, resulting in its tail's being behind the goal line. Unless you're following Brice Durbin's instruction to always (unless it's a safety, of course) make the spot have enough room to put the ball entirely outside the end zone, no matter how it was positioned when it became dead.

Robert

You have to move the dead ball spot in that situation, otherwise by rule you have now caused a dead ball to be in someones endzone. And a dead ball in an endzone is either a touchdown, a safety, or a touchback. See ruling 5.3.4 sit A in the casebook.

Robert, highly unlikely situation to be sure, but in your example what happens when A throws 4 consecutive incomplete passes and B takes over on downs? Does the R signal first down for B followed by signaling TD?

Mike L has it right. You can't place the ball in such a way that any portion of it is in the end zone.

That was exactly the problem I pointed out in this thread, and here previously, and to Brice Durbin of Fed in 1980.

So how do you place it, and what is the rules justif'n for doing so, when the dead ball spot is so close to the goal line that rotating it while preserving its foremost point would put a portion of it in the end zone?

I've seen it done in the NFL. And the rule book provisions seem to require the same in all major USAn codes, Brice Durbin's informal workaround nothwithstanding. But I've no idea how they would handle the turnover on downs problem posed above.

I believe the current rules provisions regarding awards when part of a dead ball is in an end zone apply only as the ball becomes dead or a spot is awarded, not during the readying of a ball for play or the handling of a dead ball pre-play. Otherwise you'd be giving a TD when a player of A adjusting the ball for a snap close to B's goal line inadvertently moves it over the plane of the goal line for a moment.

However, there was a time in American and Canadian football when TDs were awarded during the administration of a dead ball. When A carried the ball over a side line behind an opponent's goal line, a player of A would walk the ball in 5 to 15 paces or yards, and touch it down, which action was required for the score. The same occurred before the forward progress rule, and the runner would say "down" and be allowed to put the ball down -- ordinarily for scrimmage, but if beyond the goal line, a TD.

The rules were later changed in ways that would abolish such formailities, but when the rule making an incomplete forward pass dead and returned to the previous spot, the possibility of the strange occurrence mentioned above when the ball's turned over on downs was unaccounted for.

Robert

The official case book ruling is you must move the ball so no portion of it is in the endzone. So someone gains a couple inches. No big deal. And there is quite a difference between where the officials place a dead ball and what is allowed for adjustment by the center. The line of scrimmage is set upon the ready from the R, so adjustment by the center after that does not move the line of scrimmage and therefore you still do not have the line in the endzone or, for ruling purposes, the ball in the end zone either.
What was done last year, the year before, or 50 years ago is inconsequential really. The only thing that matters is how the rules makers want us to do it now. And not having a dead ball placed in the end zone is how they want it.

oh and ps - I have never seen a dead ball placed in the end zone by the NFL or anyone else, but maybe you've been around a lot longer or my memory is for sh!t.

I think your memory is just fine. I've never seen or heard of anything like what's being suggested by leaving a portion of the ball in the end zone.

That is NOT the rule or the practice in the NFL. The ball remains in the same spot and the chains are moved. Now in this situation by the goal line, they would always be moved. In the middle of the field sometimes the crew gets lazy and they just move the ball, but moving the ball is not the rule or the approved practice.

It's a dead ball, and it's in the end zone. Just to show you that while the ball is dead, it can enter the end zones without a touchback, touchdown, or safety's occurring. And you don't even have to say, "May I?"

I remember the shot on TV of the administration of the dead ball (a safety narrowly averted), and the announcer's remarking about the unusual event in the close-up goal line shot of the ball's being rotated so it overlapped the goal line. The announcer and color man jib-jabbed about, so is it a safety now, no it only counts as it's first spotted, etc. Team A was going from left to right; I don't remember anything else about it, except that it was 1974 or later because the goals were on the end lines.

Robert

I think you quoted & replied to the wrong post.