Dead Ball foul or Roughing or neither
 

NF. 4th and 9, 50 yd line.Punt formation. K lineman jumps and ball is snapped anyway. LJ whistles play-but slower/later than he should have. R rushes punter and roughes him on the kick. What the do we have? Two DB fouls in order of occ? or DB False start and roughing-w/Auto 1st down? Or what. Help Please, I have been through the books and can't seem to find anything that fits this.

You'd have two dead ball fouls. The "kicker" never actually became a kicker becuse the ball remained dead by rule so you can't have roughing.

FS. Nothing else happened, and certainly not a kick, so without a kick there's no kicker and so no roughing.

You could have a DB PF on R for playing through the whistle, but if your LJ was that slow or didn't blow the whistle, I'd allow some latitude here. K was obviously still playing through the down, so it's hard to blame R for doing the same.

I agree that you can't blame R for playing - but in his case, even if there were no whistle, his actions would have been illegal. He knows he can't hit a kicker after kicking. I have 2 fouls.

I agree with this, for sure. Looking for a chance for a cheap shot on the k. Should also be flagged.

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...

The slowness of the whistle really does not seem to make much difference to me. A whistle does not have to blow in order to kill a play and a player to realize something is wrong. Many plays end on my crew and no whistle is blown and somehow players stop. That is an excuse, so I have no problem penalizing a player that would have likely had to run 10 yards or more to get to the kicker in the first place.

Peace

I agree w/ Rut. This is a flag. However, it cannot be a roughing penalty and cannot be an AFD.

Thanks for the help. I Kicked this one I think. We penalized the FS but let the roughing go under the assumption that there was no play. No play - no roughing.I didn't feel very confident in that though and told the coach I would research it and call him.I should have had a DB personal it appears. Weirdly, on the 4th down replay they roughed the punter again and K got their AFD.

Well, you weren't paying attention on the first one, so they made sure to do it again so you could get it right! ;)

The idea that you could have a dead ball personal foul in your play never got brought up? C'mon, this isn't just on you, this was a crew brain fart.

You are right. That is pre-game tonight, that and quicker whistles on LOS fouls at the snap. Thanks for the help everyone. Have a great game tonight.

Heck, it would've been illegal on the street outside a football game too, but what's that got to do with it? Roughing the kicker is a live ball foul; no live ball, no live ball fouls.

LOTS of things are illegal on the street, but ok inside a game.

I don't believe I was saying this was a live ball foul.