False Start OR Illegal Shift?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by BktBallRef

No. 7-2-7 applies to motion. More than one player moving is NOT motion.

ONE player is moving, after all 11 players are set, is MOTION.

TWO or more players moving at ANY time is a SHIFT, not motion.

I don't know how to make it any more simpler than that.

"In motion" is not a technical term in Fed. It refers to movement, period. You can look in vain for a definition of "in motion" in that rule book; in fact, the only occurrences of that phrase are in 7-2-7, which is not a definition. It just says team A can't have more than one player moving at the snap, and even then there are certain conditions on the movement allowed. So there are various ways to violate 7-2-7, the simplest of which is to violate its 1st clause, namely by having more than 1 player moving at the snap.

Having 2 or more players moving is a shift, but you can't deny that it is also motion, because the ordinary meaning of the word is in use there. Otherwise you could have players shift without moving, which would be ridiculous.