Roughing or not Study Group ? #1

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by ajmc

Forgive me if I'm not making myself clear enough. The issue I'm trying to convey is not determining whether the pass was deliberately incompleted or not, becuaue the question STATED that it was thrown at the receivers feet, which would make that a deliberate act.

I agree that it is extremely difficult to make that judgment, as there are numerous factors that may point in a different direction, but if an official does make that judgment (that the pass was intentionally incompleted) it must be a foul.

Under the NFHS code Table 7-5-2-d lists, "A pass intentionally thrown to save yardage or to conserve time is an illegal pass. Other than the unique exception of a passer intentionally throwing the ball forward to the ground immediately after receiving a direct hand to hand snap, to conserve time, a passer can never, legally, intentionally incomplete a forward pass.

Nonsense.

At the receiver's feet, even deliberately, is still throwing it at a receiver. Even if you judge that he threw it at the feet intentionally, that doesn't make it illegal - you don't know with 100% certainty that this pass was thrown to save yards. We've seen QB's throw a pass to a specific spot so it's not picked. There's no way for you to be in this QB's head and KNOW that's not the case here. If the ball HITS his feet and comes up, it can still be caught. You absolutely, unequivocally do NOT have an illegal pass just because it was thrown at feet.