Illegal?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by asdf

This fake trip is outside the realm of accepted deception.

How do you know? How many times have you seen it attempted, and how many times flagged? So far we have only one data point: one attempt, no flag. So I don't see how you concluded that type of deception was outside the realm of what's accepted, because what little evidence we have says it is accepted.

Usually this sort of thing requires a definitive rule or ruling in order to be illegal. That's how it was, for instance, with feigning injury. It was legal because nobody said it was illegal until one day they did.

There are forms of football deception that one's intuition may say should be illegal but to my knowledge aren't. One is to disguise the identity of players by switching uniforms during a game; AFAIK that's legal if neither of them are disqualified, but it strikes me as contrary to the original intent of having the players have to wear numbered uniforms.