Illegal Snap?

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

We had a discussion of that here a year or more ago, and your world apparently wasn't shared by most of the others. If you followed the arc of the ball, it could be made to move backwards continuously up to the point where the other player takes it.

Robert

Oh. Well. Obviously if you say most of the people a couple years ago on this discussion board said it is ok then it must be legal. Yeah, right.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Oh. Well. Obviously if you say most of the people a couple years ago on this discussion board said it is ok then it must be legal. Yeah, right.

Why not review that discussion? It came up in the context of a "wrong ball" play, and somebody brought up whether the same snap (which was of an unusual style) would've been legal to start a play that didn't have the illegal aspect peculiar to "pretending not to be ready" types of plays. Various hypothetic forms of snap were described, including this one.

The key points are that "backward" in the description of the motion of the ball in the rule regarding snaps isn't confined to directly backward; "continuous" doesn't mean it has to be in a straight line, just unbroken by any movement which isn't backward at some angle; and that having the ball be taken from the snapper's hand or hands is a sufficient way for it to leave the snapper's possession.

And yeah, I know, it doesn't work under Canadian rules, which are much more restrictive on this point. So are some touch football rules.

Robert