HELP: DPI / Illegal use of the hands (NFHS)

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

The same reason it was illegal for so long for blockers to use their hands. This rule dates from that time.

The rules makers considered it OK to knock receivers off their routes by contact, but declined to extend to defenders the right to use their hands & arms to do so when they began to allow it for offensive blockers. The right to beat an opponent's block by use of hands or arms they kept as it was.

You're trying to read the rule & case interpret'n as if it were designed to prohibit knocking receivers off their routes by body-blocking them. It's not. If you read it objectively, you can see that. Only if you approach it with a preconceived idea that they intended to prohibit that would you get that result. If they really meant it that way, they should rewrite it.

Sometimes this "wordsmithing" gets ridiculous as people try to turn apples into oranges. Until someone throws a pass NOBODY is a "receiver". Certain players are eligible to be pass receivers and protected from someone taking their opportunity to catch a pass away, illegally (NF 7-5-6)

Pass interference restrictions begin for "A" at the snap (because if they were paying attention in the huddle, they were told it's a pass play) restrictions begin for "B" when the pass is thrown (they only know that opponents are charging at them, but can't be (absolutely) sure why until someone throws a pass).

So, the defense can protect themselves against ANYONE who might be charging at them (someone who is between them and the player holding the ball) UNTIL a pass is actually thrown. Of course a player running away from a defender is NOT CHARGING, neither is a player who has run past a defender, but a defender can LEGALLY ward off an opponent who remains a potential threat from goal line to goal line, up to the instant a legal forward pass is thrown.