x over

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

The problem is you are using very generic terms and not rulebook language. There are some here (including myself) are not sure what you really want to know. You seem new to this board and most here are officials. We do not use the term "X receiver."

Yeah, but it doesn't matter in this case whether the person knows the official terms or not. We understood "covered" to mean "took a position on the line closer to the sideline than", and "X" to mean "some teammate", which is all that mattered. (Actually, not even those details mattered!) It may be a problem in some cases, but don't make it a problem when it's not. And when it is a problem, some additional dialog can usually clear it up.

The coaches have it worse than the officials in that there's no universal meaning to much of their jargon. "X" has a different meaning to most coaches now from what it did 40 years ago, and it was never universal anyway. The letters in the back of the alphabet used to mean "primary receiver", "secondary receiver", etc. in order of passer's reads; lately it's become common to label the ends "X" & "Y", but when one coach talks to another various "gotchas" come up that vitiate that understanding.

Robert