Revised Brain Teaser

[The Roamin' Umpire]

Originally Posted by mbcrowder

While I like where you tried to go here, I don't believe this player has returned in bounds. Why? Because he's neither in nor out of bounds. A player who legally catches a normal pass over in-bounds territory is not yet in bounds until he lands on the ground with 1 or 2 (depending on ruleset) feet in bounds. Neither is the player in our sitch here.

Our problem, of course, is while the rulebook defines "out of bounds" quite clearly, it never defines "inbounds." My take is that there is no third option - if you're not out of bounds, you MUST be inbounds. But I can see how someone else might view it differently.

I will point out, though, that 9-6-2 does not contain the word "inbounds" - it just says "go out of bounds and return." When the leaping player goes from OOB to not-OOB, I think that counts as returning whether or not you think he's inbounds while airborne.

LOL. I don't know if any official ever invoking this rule, at any level. However, if any situation calls for it, I can see invoking it here. By any other rule, there was nothing illegal about this play in any ruleset.

Oh, I've never heard of it, either. But it's there, and as you said - if this isn't the reason, I'm not sure what is.