Blocking Below The Waist

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Mike L

I suppose it would depend upon where the receiver of the snap is standing and the action they take.

The snap is a loose ball, so it ends when, and where, it comes into a player's possession.

We've found in the "pistol", the QB tends to set up right about 3 yds back and is usually immediately moving back sometimes before he's even got the ball, which makes it essentially the same as the shotgun as far as the ball being out.

The wildcat? We havn't seen too much of that around here, but it would still depend on where he sets up and what action he takes with the snap.

In the Wyatt wildcat, you have 2 QBs -- often one of them is called FB -- just barely far back of the snapper enough to be in the backfield.

If he's falling back or fading back with a sweep motion, again I'd say the ball is out. If he's moving forward for a run, probably ok.

What's the big deal? You have to see if the ball leaves the FBZ. If it's carried out of the FBZ or thrown out of it, same thing. It's no harder than seeing whether the ball is in the end zone, for instance, when caught; it's still a TD if the ball is subsequently carried there.

The key to simplifying this unnecessarily complicated discussion is to remember that the position of a player without the ball makes no difference to judging whether the ball leaves the FBZ. You don't have to watch the player taking the snap at all, only the ball. Who cares whether the player was moving backward or forward or stationary at the time he caught it?

The only thing this proposed change would do is eliminate the difficult call or other proxy criteria where the snap ended outside the FBZ and the linemen charged with the snap. The ball would have been deemed to have been outside the FBZ before any BBW occurred.

Roberrt