Onside Kick?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JugglingReferee

In amateur ball, "downs continue" for Team A at Point Ball Dead because Team A was the first to legally touch the ball. In the CFL, they have a quirky rule that Team A gets a first down to matter what.

The CFL's rule is older. CAFA changed it several years after a CIAU provincial championship in which, to get a 1st down, someone threw a swing pass to a WR who caught and tap-punted the ball across the neutral zone and fell on it. In effect, the old rule made everyone cover the wideouts closely enough to prevent that, regardless of the distance to the line-to-gain. But you'll notice that CAFA didn't change it immediately after that prominent use of the "quirky rule", but a long time later when they must've finally decided that was too cheap a way to get a 1st down.

The even older rule (American & Canadian) was that the continuity of downs was interrupted when the ball was kicked in such a way as to give the other team "fair and equal chance" to recover it.