Coaches make the rules?

[jchamp]

Originally Posted by Rich

The coach should know the rule, but it makes no sense to enforce this and allow the TD to stand. They could fix this quite easily -- personal fouls and dead ball fouls (and live enforced as dead) only, the rest are declined by rule. Easy enough.

I can understand the philosophy behind this rule. The idea being to not allow a desparation foul on a potentially scoring play to benefit the defense. I could go either way with it, for the following case:

DPI but A receiver makes the catch, he is tackled at the B1. --> Decline DPI, A's ball at the B1.
DPI but A receiver makes the catch, he scores a touchdown. --> Accept DPI, enforce on try or kickoff.
You're penalizing B double for essentially "not fouling hard enough". My beef with it is that it encourages B to foul hard in all cases, to make sure there is no score. If he's gonna shove the receiver, he may as well maul him.