DPI Philosophy

[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by OverAndBack

Had a play recently that's been bugging me.

A10 runs a square-out and has his back to the goal line as the quarterback throws him the ball. B9 hits A10 from the back (right side of the back), coming through him and then making a near-interception on the ball. Pass incomplete.

DPI?

One of the things our association gave us on certain philosophies is that there has to be an "obvious intent to impede" for it to be DPI and that contact isn't necessarily DPI.

Our white hat said the umpire got it right, I'm just curious as to what your philosophy is (I know you didn't see the play, I tried to describe it as best I could).

Playing through the back is one the keys for a PI. For this key, we tend to use: if the contact occurs so close to the ball getting there, that I can't tell what happened first, then I have no foul.

I'm not certain that I that I like the phrase "obvious intent to impede". I don't believe that any player goes out there to obviously intend to impede an opponent, as players should know that such action would be a flag.

They know that their job is to prevent a catch. A sure-fire way to do that is to catch the ball yourself, or knock it away from the opponent. To do that, players often play the odds that the ball won't go through a receivers hands and into their direction, but rather desire to be in the line of the pass before the ball gets to the intended receiver. They can do that, but not through an opponent's back.

Say that a cornerback just has bad timing, and "gets there early" by going through the back of an opponent. Do you really believe that that player had an intent to impede his opponent? I don't - I just think he sucked at timing on that play.

Wouldn't an obvious intent to impede have to be called intentional pass interference, and doesn't that carry it's own, more severe, foul?