Change to PI?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

To be honest, I have no freakin idea. I think some people felt it was too harsh, but to me those were silly concerns. Other then that it was stupid IMO.

And I'll remind people of the former loss of ball penalty that at least a couple major codes had for OPI. NCAA still had loss of ball for illegal use of hands during a loose ball until a little over 40 yrs. ago.

I think the penalties both ways are too light. What does PI do? Deprive the opponent of a chance for the ball and an additional run. When you consider what might've happened absent PI either way, it often pays to interfere. The only anomaly to that is the fact that restrictions for the passing team begin with the snap, so an OPI often isn't an effort to prevent an interception, so probably there should be 2 different types of fouls there, depending on whether the ball is thrown yet.

Even "spot of the foul" for DPI may not be generous enough. Consider when a deep pass is lobbed up for a receiver to run onto, but he's tackled from behind 30 yards upfield from where the ball comes down. Consider that rugby gives the choice of an enforcement spot of where the ball comes down in the analogous case of obstruction during a kick.

When Fed started writing its own rules, there was consideration given to awarding a TD for a foul such as DPI in the end zone. The contributor of a summary in their rules committee proceedings pointed out (over 70 yrs. ago) that the norm in NCAA rules of not awarding scores but only yardage arose at a time when TDs were rarer, and said it was time to reconsider. But it obviously didn't happen.