A different way of saying this is
“Get rid of the fair catch rule.”
Ball is always live, everyone knows it, and the player fielding the ball has to run.
Well, yes, but then you have the problem of how to protect the returner. I was doing some reading about this a while ago, because the Fair Catch rule seemed to be so useless as a game play. It was brought in because returners were disproportionately likely to receive major injuries, because they basically have to stand their waiting for the ball. You need to have some rule to protect the player, so it’s a question of which rule.
I’m of the opinion that the 5-yard No Yards rule is superior.
Well that then brings up the issue as to whether the point being prevent the advance of the ball, the default choice should be to hit the opponent with the maximum possible violence. Opening a whole another can of worms.
Another (probably unpopular) option is that every kick is a fair catch. The kicking team still wants to get down the field in case it’s muffed so they can grab a turnover, or if the kick isn’t caught they can stop it from bouncing in the end zone, etc.
The team I root for has one of the best returners in the game (Tyler Lockett, multiple Pro Bowl returner) so it would be sad to see, but if you really care about safety just eliminate returns altogether.
Or… Eliminate punting. Require a team to go for it on every 4th down (or attempt a field goal). I think that might be interesting to see.
Which leaves the whole kick-off problem. So, the kicker places the ball on the 50, one yard OB, and takes a one-step kick to put the ball near the middle of the field; each team lines up on their own 40, except for one player on the non-kicking team who stands on the 50, facing the kicker. Then, just play 4 downs driving at each other, with no punting. Sounds like a plan – maybe go with 3 downs like in the CFL.
If you ***really ***care about safety, eliminate the sport entirely. Everything else is half-measures (which admittedly are better than nothing).
there is a high school team that does not punt and they are very successful , they have won state championships.
While I love deception in football and this player’s game awareness to see the defenders were not paying attention, we’ve all seen what can happen when this play goes wrong.
I would agree that the No Yards rule is superior for game play and giving the returning player a buffer for safety but it can still go wrong. I was actually at THIS GAME where a player did not respect the 5 yards.
To fully understand the 5 yards rule, you have to understand that in Canadian football, the punter (and anyone onside, that is behind the punter) can recover the punt and run with it. There is no letting the ball roll dead and no touchback. If the ball goes into the end zone and is not brought out, it costs the receiving team one point and then they get the ball, first and ten on the 25.
The kicker or anyone onside (behind the kicker at the time of the kick) can recover the punt.
On a punt, if a single point(Rouge) is scored, the team that was scored against will scrimmage at their 35 yard line.
A Rouge is awarded when the ball is punted into the goal area and not brought out again by the receiving team or the ball travels through the back or sides of the end zone either on its own, bounces out or is carried, etc…
I agree that there should be a rule change to fix this. It’s exploiting a rule designed to increase safety and reasonable attempts to counter such trick plays are going to result in flattened receivers.
The play exploits the fact that there’s a lag between the fair catch signal and the catch, and it’s sometimes hard to tell at the time of the catch whether it was a fair catch or not. Maybe you missed the receiver wave?
The solution is to make a fair catch easily distinguishable at the time of the catch.
I’d suggest: Fair catch is not actually caught. After signaling the fair catch, the receiver must be within n yards (2?) of the spot the ball comes down at, but does not catch it. The ball is marked where it hits the ground.
Can’t run a fake play if you don’t have the ball. Any incoming defense can easily see the difference and not tackle the player who doesn’t have the ball.
This does mean that there’s no longer a case where a fair catch is waved and the receiver drops the ball in attempting to catch it, but that seems uncommon enough and the gains in safety enough that it’s worth giving up.
Another option: a fair catcher must immediately take a knee after making the catch.
How does requiring a person to kneel after the catch help? You’d have situations where a person expecting to make a fair catch gets blasted immediately after catching the ball before getting a chance to kneel. The kicking team can legitimately argue that they had no idea that the player was intending to kneel. And if you expect the kicking team to stand around waiting “just in case” the returner might kneel, you’re going to have a lot of punt returned for huge gains. You’ll probably have teams going for it on almost every 4th down because punting is too risky.
No, that idea can’t work.
I’m with the OP on this one.
Brilliant. A little Fumblerooski-like in its creativity. Creative, like FSU’s Terrell Buckley, or the Music City Miracle. I originally saw that one as it happened on TV, not on any replay.
Don’t change the rules. I never saw the returner wave for a fair catch.
Punt squads are trained to track the ball in the air and not merely key off of the returner and possibly some of his blockers.
Fucking awesome!
It would work fine in the case of the video the OP shared. If that guy had tried to run right away, he’d have been tackled. The reason he makes it is that he just walks away like the play is over and the other team follows his lead. The kneel means that he can’t do that. He either immediately takes a knee or they know the play is still live.
To make sure I’m being clear, the kneel is in addition to the existing fair catch wave, not a replacement.
If someone waved a fair catch, then got smashed before they could kneel, then, well, that’s already against the rules, right? And not the issue we’re talking about here.
The fake fair catch works in cases where it’s crazy for the returner to not call a fair catch because the defense is going to get to him by the time he makes the catch. In those cases, you have several defenders right next to him at the time of the catch. If he didn’t wave them off and tries to run there, they get him pretty easy.
The knee-after-fair-catch might not be a perfect solution, but I bet it solves the vast majority of the problem.
The problem with this reasoning is: it’s too easy to miss the fair catch wave. How many injured returners are we willing to accept because the fair catch might be missed, and you don’t want to give the benefit of the doubt?
No. It makes it worse exactly for the reason I stated. If you require that it be kneed in addition to being waved then you’ll have guys getting pancaked before they can kneel. You’ve pretty much ignored and failed to address anything I said.
I’m not trying to ignore what you said, but I think we’re maybe talking past each other? I tried rephrasing my suggestion to help. Maybe you could rephrase your issue with it to help me understand?
Here are the scenarios as I see them under my proposed rule.
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Returner waves for fair catch, catches ball, is tackled before he could take a knee. Same penalty for other team as there has always been for tackling someone who has signaled a fair catch.
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Returner waves for fair catch, catches ball, takes a knee. Fair catch completed successfully. Ball dead where caught.
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Returner waves for fair catch, catches ball, doesn’t take a knee as he is supposed to. Play is dead and a returning team has a (small) penalty for failing to do the fair catch thing right. Assuming he’s had time to take a knee and gets tackled, no penalty for tackling team.
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Returner doesn’t wave for a fair catch, catches ball, doesn’t take a knee, stands around hoping the other team won’t notice. Ah ha! The other team knows that he was supposed to take a knee, so he must not have really signaled a fair catch, and the three defenders who are standing right by him because they got there at the same time as the ball tackle him rather than wandering off like in the video.
The trick play above (and the danger inherent in it) is that right now it’s really hard to distinguish between cases 3 and 4. Adding taking a knee makes it easier to distinguish and less likely to have this sort of confusion result in injuries to the returner.
Maybe I’m missing something. But I think I’ve directly addressed the issue you raised (it’s scenario #1 above) and it’s unchanged with my new rule.
Your scenario #4 contrasts scenario #1. The defenders are not going to tackle the guy if they think he might have signaled for a fair catch in scenario #4 because of the consequences of scenario #1 (tackling a guy who signaled for a fair catch but didn’t yet take a knee). Your scenario #4 would never happen. Nothing has been fixed or prevented. This trick play would work the same way under your system as it did under the current system. If the kicking team thinks you called a fair catch signal and know they’ll be penalized if they tackle you, they’re going to leave you alone and you have a chance to run it in. They think you forgot to kneel and they’re happy to let you get penalized because they think they’re in scenario #3.
Again, nothing has changed. If the defenders didn’t realize you didn’t signal for a fair catch and didn’t realize that the play wasn’t blown dead then the same ruse will still work in the same way. All you’ve done is added an extra formality to the fair catch procedure that doesn’t really correct the issue or prevent the trick.
I appreciate your rephrasing, because now I understand where we disagree. One or both of us is pretty confused. 
Did you watch the video that started this thread? Scenario #4 is literally the thing that happens in the video of the trick play that this thread is about.
Here’s the link again.
The text on the page says: “Brewer simply pretended he called for a fair catch and did not try to return the ball at first. Everybody on the Arkansas side went along with it, and then Brewer took off untouched for a 90-yard touchdown.”
Oh I’m well aware of the play. I’m not saying what you describe the returner doing would never happen (of course it would, that’s the point of this thread). I’m saying what you described the defenders doing would never happen. I thought I was pretty explicit in drawing that distinction.
Again, as long as the following conditions exist:
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Tackling a returner who calls a fair catch results in a penalty.
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Defenders think the returner called a fair catch (though he didn’t).
That returner isn’t going to get tackled and the trick will work. You can tack on an extra rule about the returner needing to kneel but it won’t matter. They’re still not going to tackle him. All you added in your rule is that the defenders assume the returner is also getting a flag for neglecting to kneel.
Again, I’ve gone over all this before. Your rule is ineffective.
By the way, I’m not meaning to imply your idea is nonsense or stupid, it’s just that if you think it through it wouldn’t change the result.