Question re illegal forward pass

[wwcfoa43]

Originally Posted by With_Two_Flakes

To help make penalty enforcement on fouls by Team A make sense is to think of it like this....
1st and 10 from midfield. A player makes a great run to the 5yd line where he is tackled. His teammate held someone at the 10yd line.

It would be a harsh penalty indeed if we went all the way back to the neutral zone and marched the 10yd holding from there. The guy made 40 yds honestly. The hold at the 10 likely only affected the yards made from the 10 to the 5. So we march the holding penalty from the flag at the 10, back to the 20. That is still enough for a 1st down so they get a new 1st and 10.

You know what would make even more sense? March the penalty from where the ball was when the hold occurred. After all that is how much yardage was obtained prior to the illegal act and so that is what the player should get credit for.

This is what we do in Canada. We use the concept of Point Ball Held to determine the point of application in this situation.

Mind you, finding Point Ball Held is harder than establishing Point of Foul so sometimes I do envy the simplicity of Point of Foul.