No Longer a Potential Blocker

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by ajmc

Reading TOO much into a rule can be as dangerous as not reading enough. Fortunately, NFHS has provided us with the Case Book, which is designed and intended to help clarify rules.

2011 Case Book reference 9-2-3-A addresses this issue, in detail, advising, "RULING"...A defender may legally contact an eligible receiver beyond the NZ before the pass is in flight. The contact may be a block (see NF: 2-3-1) or warding off the opponent who is attempting to block by pushing or pulling him. However, if the receiver is not attampting to block or has gone past or is moving away, it is illegal for the defender to use hands in the manner described in this situation. It is clear that A1 is no longer a potential blocker on B1.

The type of contact is not specified, nor limited to any specific manner of contact, or body part initiating the contact

So you're saying that the "use hands in the manner described in this situation" is meant to apply only to "warding off the opponent who is attempting to block by pushing or pulling him", rather than to the entire sentence, which includes "may be a block"? I would say that'd be superfluous language then, because clearly if an opponent is not attempting to block you, you're not warding him off! And since it says the contact may be a block, as distinguished from an effort to ward off a block, clearly the case book is saying that the defense is allowed to make a block against an opponent who wasn't trying to block him first.

My collection of rule books, let alone committee proceedings or reports, is not sufficient to prove that this confusion arose as a result of an editing error, although some day I might get to the NY Public Library or get someone at Fed to help with the archives on this, but it helps if you know that there was a time when it was definitely clear that the rules makers wanted to restrict the defense from use of hands, but not body blocking, by defenders against potential receivers. The pros made it fairly clear in the 1980s when they changed that protection to include body blocks by adding the term "or body" to the previous "use of hands or arms" in the relevant article or section. However, just to show that previously to that they had maintained the distinction is this Supplemental Note from NFL's 1978 rules: "The promiscuous use of the hands by the defense, except as provided in Article 4, is illegal and is commonly used in lieu of a legal block (Article 5)." It wouldn't surprise me if that was mostly old language inherited from NCAA that the latter subsequently deleted; "promiscuous" looks like a word from an earlier era! (Article 4 referred to the then recently introduced chuck rule as an exception to the general prohibition on use of hands against an opponent not trying to block you; this was just a few years after use of the hands by the offense was liberalized, much to the aid of passing offense, so presumably they were giving a little compensation to pass defense.)

The Federation would probably have some remark somewhere the year they changed their rule to apply to all forms of contact, if indeed that's what they intended. I'd say the evidence given by the placement of that provision in the "use of hands" rather than the "contact" article is that they did not intend it to apply to all forms of contact.

I will note, however, that the play situation hardly ever comes up, because in the open field, the defender hardly ever wants to take a chance of being beaten by a receiver against an attempt at an old-fashioned, hands-close-to-the-body block -- hence the reference by NFL to "promiscuous use of hands by the defense...in lieu of a legal block". The likeliest situation I can think of is intercepting a receiver on a crossing route over the middle, when a defender without responsibility for coverage of that receiver might take the opp'ty to shoulder or crab block him.