Intentional Safety Gone Wrong
 

A twist on Sunday's events. 4th and 10 at A's 5yl. A99 lines up to punt. A99 instead takes the snap and runs around to waste time with the goal to take a safety. B50, recognizing the plan, reaches A99 before goes down. B50 grabs A99 and carries him out of the endzone before tackling him on the A2 yl.

There is SO MUCH that could have gone wrong that would have been avoided by simply punting. This is only one of them.

Personally, I was hoping for a "serves them right" moment - like, punt is high and not as deep as it went, and is fair caught at the 40. Harbaugh then kicks the free kick and we go to overtime.

I would just instruct my team that that if anyone comes close to the punter, to tackle them (and if I recall correctly, there was a blatant hold that occurred on the play). I'd also make sure to tell them to make sure any penalty is not a personal foul as it would carry over and if the circumstances are right, extend the game with an untimed free kick down.

That used to be practically impossible while there was verbal declaration of "down" by the runner, but it seems all the American codes have by now deleted that one. I know NCAA was first, don't know when NFL did that but I think Fed preceded them. Do either of the Canadian codes still have it?

I heard Brian Bielik say that it was okay that holding wasn't called because the 49ers would have declined the penalty anyway. :o