Dead Ball foul or Roughing or neither

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Had to be there. Given the facts presented I'm leaning toward its being a nothing. The players on both teams are equally liable for delay of game if they knowingly played thru the whistle, but if it looks like they didn't know what was going on, it's a nothing. If the kicker's action looked half hearted while the opponent lustily plowed into him, personal foul. However, the fact that the kicker went so far as to get the kick off mitigates against that last interpret'n.

Could the play be dangerous? Sure, but so could a lot of things when they're not playing football, so that alone is not an excuse for flagging it.

This surprises me... think about it. The hit that the player made on the kicker would have been illegal if performed during a live ball. How could it possibly, then, not be illegal if performed during a dead ball? If the excuse given is that he didn't know it was a dead ball, it still doesn't excuse the fact that even if he was right it would have been illegal...