FED: Protecting the punter

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by bisonlj

A good philosophy I've heard is if the action by the defender is someone trying to tackle a runner you let it go. If the action is someone trying to block a kick you have roughing/running into the kicker. The latter would be a foul if the defender could have avoided the contact, but we are generally talking about pretty immediate action in these cases.

I agree with that philosophy and would write it into the rules (in place of what they have now) if I could. The player who's acting like he's blocking a kick reveals he expected a kick, and therefore has the burden of avoiding contact. The player who looks like he's making a tackle should be judged only by the criteria of unnecessary roughness, in the form of contacting a player who's out of play.