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.

Well, duh! And lots of things are illegal during one interval of a game, and illegal during another interval.
But you were implying it should be a foul during a dead ball interval because it would've been one during a live ball interval.

Here's what I'm saying in a nutshell.

The contact was obviously WAY after the whistle - and should be a dead ball foul.

There are times, when (for whatever reason) it is not clear to the player that the play is dead (like in this case, the whistle was late or weak), the excuse is made that a foul shouldn't be one because he didn't know the play was dead and whatever he did would have been okay if the play was not dead.

In this case, even THAT argument can not be made, because what he did would have been a foul even if the ball had been live.

It seems to me the confusion lies with where to draw the line on ignoring dead ball contact.

Examples (for my own clarification as a rookie FB official):
1. The ball is snapped, but the HL has an encroachment foul on the defense. The whistle is late, and immediately after the whistle, A67 holds B99. Ignore the DB contact?

I think so.

2. The ball is snapped, but the U has a snap infraction. Immediately after the whistle, B97 grabs the facemask of an offensive lineman. Ignore the DB contact?

I doubt it.

3. The ball is snapped in a punt formation, but the LJ has a false start on the wing. Immediately after the snap and before the whistle, the B99 roughs the snapper. Ignore the DB contact?

I don't know.

In basketball, DB contact is ignored if it's not intentional or flagrant, and I think I'm trying in vain to apply that standard to football.

How do you figure that from what's been written here?

If it was obviously way after the whistle, then it makes no difference what kind of play it might've been had the ball been live; it's a personal foul, UR, possibly disqualifying. You might have 2 dead ball fouls penalized in order: delay of game on the kicker, then the personal foul.

But sports officiating doesn't work like law court, with choice of defenses. You're not allowed to stipulate stuff, handle legs of contingency separately.

From this: I try very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are actually interested in discussing a play and determining what should happen - but I honestly have NO IDEA what your point is with the rest of this. And at this point I am not sure I care... add this to the inane "What if he goes around the field" nonsense and I'm sure I don't care.

1. We ignore holding in general unless it occurs at the point of attack and affects the play (or becomes a PF).

2. Yep, flag that. It's a PF, and it would be a foul even if the ball were live. No excuse!

3. Probably a PF here, since again the contact would have been illegal even with a live ball. But it can't be roughing the snapper because the ball was dead (no snap = no snapper). So no auto 1st down.

I ignore some DB contact, but generally not PF's. The situation is not quite comparable to basketball, since the amount and intensity of "normal" contact is quite different.

From that you get the idea that the hit came WAY after the whistle? I think you infer too much. I doubt the story would even have been posted in that case, because then the call would've been obvious.

Read the OP again. He has a personal foul, he is just asking whether is roughing or a dead ball PF.

Anything else is your own inference.

Read the subject line of the thread.