first touching of scrimmage kick

[yankeesfan]

on 4th down k punts, its pretty much a shank that goes about 15 yards, while the ball is still slowing rolling a k player runs by an touches the ball as if he was downing it and keeps running, the ball is now laying still on the ground. the K player never possessed the ball, but when he touch it it did come to a complete stop imediately. there was an R player within 5 yards of the ball, the R picks up the ball and runs for a touchdown. i threw my been bag at the spot of the touch and then took off with the runner. was that the correct call or should i have blown it dead?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by yankeesfan

on 4th down k punts, its pretty much a shank that goes about 15 yards, while the ball is still slowing rolling a k player runs by an touches the ball as if he was downing it and keeps running, the ball is now laying still on the ground. the K player never possessed the ball, but when he touch it it did come to a complete stop imediately. there was an R player within 5 yards of the ball, the R picks up the ball and runs for a touchdown. i threw my been bag at the spot of the touch and then took off with the runner. was that the correct call or should i have blown it dead?

You probably did everything right, but it's a "have to see it". Depending on how the K player touched the ball "as if he was downing it", some officials might've ruled possession -- like a palm on top of the ball and the ball's being at rest. Then depending on how long the ball was at rest, others might have blown it dead. But when in doubt in situations where no physical danger would attend to a live ball, keep it alive. Your judgement was "never possessed", so it's not dead for reason of possession. You gave no indication of the ball's being dead, and you should definitely not decide to kill it once you see the R player moving towards it.

Robert

[daggo66]

Definitely would have to see this would but would probably err on the side of blowing it dead if the ball was at rest after being touched.

[Bob M.]

REPLY: I'm with daggo66 on this. If K touches a scrimmage kick at rest beyond the neutral zone, it's dead. If his touching of a rolling scrimmage kick causes it to come to rest while he's touching it, doesn't matter, still dead because he's touching a kick at rest. But if after he touches it, it's still rolling, play on.

[yankeesfan]

Originally Posted by Bob M.

REPLY: I'm with daggo66 on this. If K touches a scrimmage kick at rest beyond the neutral zone, it's dead. If his touching of a rolling scrimmage kick causes it to come to rest while he's touching it, doesn't matter, still dead because he's touching a kick at rest. But if after he touches it, it's still rolling, play on.

i figured that it depends on what the ball was doing before the first touching rather than after was the more important part of this situation.