Thoughts of officals on the A11 offense.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

It's an end run around a rule just as the A-11 is an end run around the numbering exception. The protection is only for a scrimmage kick formation. Running every play out of that formation to avoid having a defender able to shoot up the middle is ludicrous.

First of all, there's nothing about it that prevents a defender's shooting up the middle. He just can't hit the snapper on the way.

But second, did it ever occur to you that there could be other reasons to line up in that formation? And that when the snapper does snap the ball deep, it doesn't matter in terms of his exposure what type of play it's going to be?

If the guy is clearly 7+ yards deep (quick glance, obvious), I'll enforce it, but if it's borderline, I'm not going to penalize it.

Nothing wrong with benefit of the doubt. But it seems like where you should be giving the benefit of the doubt to the defense is in cases where incidental contact with the snapper occurs as a defender tries to shoot by him (or when the contact is more than incidental but results from being deflected into the snapper by an adjacent lineman's block), in cases where the ball is snapped to a "short" man and the defense reacts to a threat in the middle in a way that involves the snapper.

Robert