Bean Bag discussion on Kicks

[Canned Heat]

Originally Posted by JRod37

Apparently you missed the request in the OP for a civil discussion.

Agreed...this reminds me of the pre fight weigh-in at a boxing match. You know there's going to be somebody stirring the pot.

[bisonlj]

Or you could do what I did in a JV game working umpire. It was a short kick and I didn't realize it. After I pivoted, the ball came down and hit me in the shoulder. After it bounced on the ground it hit an R player in the leg. I reacted by dropping my flag (yes, that yellow thing in my waist) at the spot. Realizing that was the wrong thing to, before jumping into the pile for the recovery I picked up my flag and rather than leaving well enough alone, I dropped my bean bag at the spot instead. Why?!?!

K recovered the ball and to make it more interesting, the R had a flag for roughign the punter. Now K has a decision to make. Add 15 yards to the previous spot or take the ball where they recovered it. That would require knowlege of the previous spot. Guess what happened? Yup...look to the sideline and there's the box man standing with a 1 on the box at the spot of recovery. Crap! Mr. Box Man, do you remember where the previous line of scrimmage was? He moved back several yards and picks a spot so we go with it. It was better for K to take the penalty from that spot rather than the spot of recovery.

As I'm going back to the hash where the ball was snapped I pick up my bean bag and realize it's at the same yard line as the box. If that's where the ball hit R it was about the same yard line where I was standing at the snap which had to be at least 8 yards beyond the LOS. The bean bag actually did serve a purpose. It told me (and only me) that we were definitely wrong on the enforcement spot.

As confidently as I could, I marched off the penalty from there, put it down and we moved on. It was a blow out late in a JV game on a Saturday morning and I had screwed up bad enough already. Chalk it up as a learning experience and move on.

As for the OP, I definitely don't think you should bag the spot of touching by R. I "tip" signal would be fine but it's usually pretty obvious if R touches it. Otherwise anyone can possess it regardless and your signal one way or the other will after the play will tell everyone if you had touching.