Illegal Forward Pass and Roughing the Passer
 

A12 is chased from the pocket, and as he approaches the line of scrimmage, he sees an open receiver. He steps beyond the line of scrimmage, throws a completed pass, and is then hit late after releasing the ball.

Is it possible to have Roughing the passer on this play?

A passer is a player who throws a legal forward pass,he continues to be a passer until the legal forward pass ends or until he moves to participate in the play.

By definition he is not a passer so you cant have RTP

No, this cannot be a RTP foul. Could be a personal foul say if the team-B player also yanked on his mask, or hit him helmet to helmet or directly into his body.

See casebook 9.4.4 Sit-A-(b).

NCAA

9-1-2-o
No defensive player shall charge into a passer or throw him to the ground when it is obvious the ball has been thrown.

BUT also,

2-27-5
The passer is the player who throws a legal forward pass.

So I would say the answer in NCAA is No, there is no roughing the passer. There might of course be some other type of Personal Foul. The key difference being that the RTP can be added onto the end of the last run on a completed pass.

EDIT - Boy, my typing must be slow when I get beaten to the punch by two other posts. :rolleyes:

Canadian Ruling
 

CANADIAN RULING:

The philosophy in Cdn amatuer with the passer approaching the LS is that if it is reasonable to believe that the passer thought he was still behind the LD, then penalize for an illegal forward pass. It if is such that it is obvious that the passer was past the LS, and he should have known this fact, rule as an offside pass subject to penalty.

From the wording in the OP, it seems as though the passer was only slightly past the LS, therefore we rule as an illegal forward pass. The late hit is roughing the passer. There is no importance to something called "the pocket" in Cdn ball.

Result: up 5 yards from PLS, AFD.

Thank you for helping to educate me.

Cannot have a roughing the passer as in order to be a passer he must throw a legal forward pass.

It is possible to have unnecessary roughness as the runner who threw the pass was no longer involved in the play. However, you need to use judgment, consider if his illegal pass is intercepted, B's contact would be legal as he would be blocking.

Just to clarify, the NCAA rule is clear that the ENTIRE BODY must be beyond the NZ or this isn't a foul. I interpret this to mean that the passing motion (starting from when the arm is as far back as it is going to be) pretty much will start and end beyond the NZ for this. Anyone view it differently?

For a deep pass in a 5 man crew, good luck on this call!

9-4-4 "Defensive players must make a definite effort to avoid charging into a passer, who has thrown the ball from in or behind the neutral zone, after it is clear the ball has been thrown."

The corollary to that is the running back who throws an option pass and then gets levelled and you throw the flag and the coach yells, "But he's not a quarterback!"

Yeah, you can't have roughing the passer on an illegal forward pass, but you could have a personal foul if it was heinous.

Same for Fed. except, if any part of passer's body is beyond the neutral zone it's IFP. [Not that I'll call it that tight. MIBT.]

REPLY: Just to clarify for Fed...it's the feet of the passer that determines whether or not a forward pass is legal. If both feet are behind the defensive LOS, i.e. in or behind the neutral zone, then there is no foul--even though his arm, hand, or body may indeed be penetrating the plane of the defensive LOS.