Penalty or not?????

[JRutledge]

I am really at a loss, because we were talking about a very specific situation. All answers on a discussion board are not about all rules and all possible situations. I am sorry that you took the statement as an all encompassing statement, but we were talking about one situation and trying to dispel a term that was not in our code and that was "illegal contact."

I sometimes wish people would stop trying to take a statement and add stuff to it when the context is very clear. We were not even talking about DPI; the ball was not in the air in the original example.

Originally Posted by Mike L

So it continues to go back to who initiates contact by the cut-off. You can dance around it all you want by claiming cut-off means a certain thing that you implied, but it still remains as I said you have to determine who caused the contact to initiate. Just because B steps into the path of A's route does not mean B initiated the contact.

I am going to interject some logic into this conversation. If you "cut off" a receiver, would that not be a purposeful act? Would that mean that someone other than the receiver is responsible for the cut off or contact?

Originally Posted by Mike L

And as a side, if you want to talk about things not remotely related to the subject, just how does B step into the route of an A receiver who has turned away from him? Or how can you say A is no longer a potential blocker. If B manages to get in A's way without initiating contact, isn't A now coming at him?

Once again, my comment was about contact and making contact with an eligible receiver. It was not about just getting in the way of someone or directing them without any contact. I stand by what I said; you cannot cut off a receiver from their route before the ball is in the air. You sound like a coach that talks about a "moving screen" in basketball and there was no contact.

Peace

[dumbref]

My - Hasn’t this become a feisty post! I suppose I started using the term “cut off” – if that caused confusion to the OP, I apologize. My intension was to describe B’s stop as the (possible) action that caused the “contact on an eligible receiver” (non-potential blocker) as in 9-2-3d.

Even with the foul by B, it does not eliminate A’s restriction to block under the same provision and 7-5-8a. As stated in an earlier post, I will allow A some leeway to avoid or get away from the contact. But it can not include A simply “pushing B to the ground”.

I agree with JRutledge, I’d prefer to call one or the other. But I can also visualize fouls by both players in this situation, resulting in a double foul. I do not mean to imply it should always be a double foul – only that it is a possibility as described in the OP.