Wrong Ball Play

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by svm1010

Cause this isn't about being stupid. This is about it being a football play versus some adminstrative bull crap. Every foodball play is suposed to start the same way via a legal snap (not counting free kicks for you strict interpretationists) That's what the kids are trained for. Now you can argue that this is a legal snap even through it does not pass between the snapper's legs, but this play isn't football, this is a "hah hah Fooled you." Trick plays such as play action, fake punt, swinging gate, and onside kicks are football plays, this isn't. Blow it dead and march em back.

It's "hah hah" only because of the "wrong ball" aspect. Otherwise, you're saying the snap "isn't football" just because it's unusual. Even one of the plays you listed, swinging gate, uses an unusual form of snap.

Has it occurred to you that snapping the ball by turning around with it could have deceptive and tactical advantages? At Coach Huey's we're having a discussion about various sorts of advantages that could be gained by unusual forms of snap. One thought is that the turnaround snap could end with the ball's being taken by a back in fly motion, same as the usual motion of the quarterback but eliminating the middleman. Then, because the snapper would have turned to face backward by a motion of both feet, he's eligible to take the ball back by a forward handoff.

If the rules makers wanted to restrict the snap further, they could do so -- as has been done in Canadian football and some forms of touch football, which require the snap to pass between the legs. The only thing the American football rulesmakers wanted to do was to avoid rugby's situation where the live ball could remain in scrimmage for a significant time.

Robert