NE vs Colts safety

[bisonlj]

Originally Posted by APG

Have you not seen a situation in an NFL game where a back will fumble the ball...the ball is rolling forward (toward B's end zone), B attempts to recover the loose ball and in the process, knocks the ball forward toward A's endzone...and ultimately, the ball goes out of A's endzone?

That's a situation where the ball would never have gone into A's endzone as the ball was rolling forward, but the ball is muffed by the defense into B's endzone...the result will be a safety still (in the NFL).

I agree at NCAA and NFHS as well. A great point was made earlier there is no language anywhere stating we have to judge if the ball would have gone into the end zone without the muff.

Think of it like "it's a kick, it's a kick, it's a kick". It's A's impetus until it's not. The "not" conditions are an illegal kick, illegal bat, muff of a grounded scrimmage kick beyond the NZ, or muff of a fumble at rest or nearly at rest (remembering these off the top of my head so may not be 100% complete). Unless one of these happen the impetus/force has not changed.

Another concept is "flawed play". In this example, A has a flawed play because they fumbled the ball, had a bad snap, had a kick blocked, etc. B has not flawed anything.