runner down exception

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by Ed Hickland

Let's go a step further.

Ball is snapped to the holder, unable to field the ball it bounds off his hands to the potential kicker who grabs it and runs for a touchdown. Legal?

Or, ball is snapper to the holder who bats the ball backwards to the potential kickerwho runs for a touchdown. Legal?

What is the rule?

If the holder "Muffs" the snap, which is subsequently caught by another player and advanced, nothing has happened to cause a live ball to become dead, so TD.

The second option is just too silly to ever happen twice. Some fool may try it once, but whoever called such a silly thing would likely be fired, and possibly exiled from the game. However, since a "snap" is defind as a pass (NF: 2.40.1) which fits the definition of "backwards" (NF: 2.31.5) it complys with the restrictions related to "batting a pass" (NF: 9.7.3) and still doesn't cause a live ball to become dead, it would still result in a TD.

Robert: The horse you're trying to ride has already been processed through the glue factory. It's way too late to breath life back into it. Trying to defend something clearly understood to mean one thing, to imply the opposite, simply to satisfy the most extreme semantic possibility, is an endless quest, that leads nowhere.