Slapping the Snap

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by MrUmpire

I have seen this attempted three times in my career. I was on the side each time. Each time, the defensive lineman's hand entered the neutral zone prior to the snap beginning. Each time encroachment was called.

A defender would not have to be just a little quicker, he'd have to be a hell of lot quicker to make this work. Remember, he has to reach across the neutral zone first and catch up to an object already being moved away from him quickly.

But he doesn't have to catch up much. His hand could be a millimeter from the neutral zone to start with. Or, if he picked up some tell by the snapper, his hand could already be moving, timed to enter the NZ just at the snap, while the ball is still stationary.

Am I correct that NCAA's requirements for completing the snap are different from Fed's? ISTR the snap in NCAA as only having to completely transit the plane of the snapper's waist. If that's so, then that's their saving grace that allows their "ball is snapped" in this case to mean the snap was completed, while Fed's means the snap has begun.

I really think Fed didn't contemplate this situation. If they had, they might've adopted NCAA's solution, or might've altered the requirement of a legal snap to relieve A of any foul when contact by B occurred in this manner.

Just a thought: once the requirement of completing a snap was adopted, Fed could just as well have eliminated the requirement that the snap be quick & continuous, because if it's not, B would produce the illegal-snap-by-A situation as described herein. But maybe not. The snapper might have ways of picking up the ball and quickly turning to protect it, like setting a maul except that players of A couldn't bind on. Or the snapper could pick the ball up while charging ahead and delaying letting go of it. Meanwhile the lines would "dissolve" and it would become unclear whether the first player to touch the snapped ball was in the backfield at the time.

Robert