ESPN Magazine A-11 Article

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by newmdref

The scrimmage kick formation or any variant of it as a base offense in college or the NFL will never happen

They dont need it in the NFL, because they can report in in/eligible number variations.

If they wanted something like it, they wouldn't use such a Rube Goldbergish means as a scrimmage kick formation numbering exception, they would simply abolish or alter the eligible receiver numbering rule they adopted decades ago. And I could see them doing that, because at the time they adopted the rule they picked up most of their rule chages from the colleges, while nowadays rules changes are as likely to come down from the pros into the colleges as vice versa.

As to the semi-prediction made by the article regarding roughing the passer, if the NFL did that it would probably wind up making the avg. offense more conservative than now. That's because if they adopted the kind of strict liability that exists now re contacting the kicker, they would surely have to adopt a similar caveat that it would not apply if the passer left "usual passing position". Which means that rather than passing up that additional protection for their expensive passers, teams would station them in "passing position" permanently.

Robert