Rule 9-6-4d

[Robert Goodman]

Probably Fed's qualifier is an attempt to stake off parts of the grey area where you might not be able to tell whether a procedure is a hide-out play or just a legitimate substitution procedure that may look fishy. They're saying that if the other team has enough time to see the formation, then your suspicion about the intentions of one team aside, it's legal.

It's the same with intentional grounding. They could've simply left it at that, but they added qualifiers about the ball's not being thrown in the direction of an eligible receiver. So even if you think it's an intentionally incomplete pass, you don't rule it so if there was some chance to complete it.

Of course qualifiers like this introduce new grey areas. Now you want to know how short a period before the snap qualifies it as a feigned substitution, or how far the pass has to be from an eligible receiver. But you understand the reason for them, right?