# Complicated football question. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 24, 2000, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicated-football-question/38065 "2000-10-24T02:45:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2000, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicated-football-question/38065/21 "2000-12-26T18:44:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wolfman \* > \*\*I’ve been watching and playing football my whole life, but there is one situation that I’ve never seen, and have always wondered about. Its hard to explain but let’s try. > > statement 1. If a punt coverage man jumps at the one yard line, and bats the ball back over the goal line with neither him or them having ever touched the goal line or anything past it, even though it is past the goal line in the air, and a teammate downs on the one yard line , the offence starts at the one. > > statement two. If a Punt coverer touches the ball but doesn’t control it, a punt returner can grab the ball and run. One of the advantages of this is that even if he fumbles, It will go back to the punt returning team because the punt coverer technically is guilty of Illegal touching. It is a penalty that isn’t explicticly called very often because downing the ball happenes several times ever game, but if what happens after the illegal touch is bad for the returning team, the ball will be given back to them because of this rule. > > Now combining these two situations. A punt coverer jumps at the one, bats the ball backwards. The punt returner grabs the ball out of the air, runs a little bit, get hit and fumbles, a member of the punt covering team recovers the ball deep in the punt returners terrritory. The Punt returning team obviously doesn’t want the other team to have the ball, so they choose to invoke the illegal touching rule to gain possesion of the ball. The problem is where to they get it. The guy it touched in the endzone, but it doesn’t really coun’t as having touched it in the endzone because of statement 1. > > So do they pretend that he did touch it in the endzone, even though the situation says he never did, and give them a touchback? do they give it to the returning team where the punt returner grabbed it, that would not be according to any rule? Do they say it was never ‘technically’ touched by a coverer, and therefore is a fumble? I’ve never seen it happen but wonder what would happen. If you need me to clarify what I’m talking about I’ll try. \*\* I finally found the right answer to this question. I stumbled across it in an “Ask the Referee” online column on [http://www.ChicagoSports.com](http://www.ChicagoSports.com) In the situation described above, former NFL official Jerry Markbreit says that the illegal touching would be figured from the point that the player last touched the field. That would be the 1-yard line. So, in the situation described above, the receiving team would get the ball at the 1. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2000, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicated-football-question/38065/22 "2000-12-26T19:47:12Z")
I’m a little puzzled. DRY said that anytime a fair catch is made, the team can opt for a free kick (field goal attempt). But Sofa King said that it can do that only in the last two minutes of a half. Now which is it? ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2000, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicated-football-question/38065/23 "2000-12-26T19:58:20Z")
You can ask for a free kick field goal try after any fair catch at any time. The rule only exists in the NFL and high school. It’s not in the college rule book. I’ve only seen one attempted and it came right before the half ended. I believe that if you call a fair catch as time expires, you still get a chance to attempt the kick. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2000, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicated-football-question/38065/24 "2000-12-26T20:25:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by barbitu8 \* > \*\*I’m a little puzzled. DRY said that anytime a fair catch is made, the team can opt for a free kick (field goal attempt). But Sofa King said that it can do that only in the last two minutes of a half. > > Now which is it? \*\* I don’t know what the rule states, but I guarantee that no coach would ever opt to attempt a field goal (as opposed to run normal offense) if time wasn’t running out. The team must have great field position if a field goal is possible, and with plenty of time they’d surely attempt to drive for a touchdown. ---
**Author:** ![Gazoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ce73a5/32.png) [@Gazoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gazoo)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2000, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicated-football-question/38065/25 "2000-12-26T20:25:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BobT \* > \*\*You can ask for a free kick field goal try after any fair catch at any time. The rule only exists in the NFL and high school. It’s not in the college rule book. > > I’ve only seen one attempted and it came right before the half ended. I believe that if you call a fair catch as time expires, you still get a chance to attempt the kick. \*\* It almost happened again at the end of the first half of the Packer/Buc game. Dungy appeared all set to have his team make the fair catch and then try the kick, but Sherman was on to him and sent Favre in to kill the clock instead. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicated-football-question/38065/26 "2000-12-27T02:50:08Z")
Here’s a quote I posted in another thread a month or two back when we were talking about the kicking game: "IIRC, the last attempted pro game dropkick was in 1949 on a botched field goal snap. The kicker ended up with the ball and tried to dropkick it through, but I think was unsuccessful. (He may have made it, I forget.) In recent years, QB Jim McMahon was a devotee of the dropkick and would practice it for hours. Apparently he got quite good at it too – no small trick in this day and age of pointy footballs. Whenever his team would get into range he would nag his coach to let him attempt it, but they never did." [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicated-football-question/38065.md?page=1)