From what little I know of football, I know there are rules on who you can tackle. The defensive team can’t just tackle people in order to take them down without the ball right? So for thishidden ball trick video, what if the defense tackled some guys who they thought had the ball but didn’t? Is that a penalty of some kind? Is it up to the referee’s discretion?
That’s a college game, I don’t know the rules for that. In the NFL you can only tackle a runner with the ball.
ETA: There are loose ball rules that might allow it, but that wouldn’t apply here.
For the NFL:
“Any offensive player who pretends to possess the ball, and/or one to whom a teammate pretends to give the ball, may be tackled until he crosses the line of scrimmage line between the tackles of a normal tight offensive line.”
Right, that’s a hand off rule. So maybe they can tackle any of them while they’re huddled together.
But how does that work in practice? Couldn’t a defensive player get out of a penalty by simply claiming that he thought the tackled player was carrying the ball?
Presumably it would have to be a player who had been in a position earlier in the play to have been handed the ball. In the unusual play shown in the video, there were a number of players who qualified. But in most plays, you’re only going to have a couple of players who had the opportunity.
Thanks guys. Ok, another question.
I hear announcers sometimes talk about a team getting within field goal range. From some show I watched about football records, I think a guy with half a foot and a special shoe set the record which was like 65 yards. Yet field goal range seems to always be within around 40 yards. Did the rules change and teams can’t decide to just go kick a field goal wherever they are? A lot of times, teams seems to be within at least a reasonable chance to hit a field goal, but they punt instead for a guaranteed zero points
Remember that the endzone is 10 yards deep and the ball is kicked from 7 yards behind the line of scrimmage. So even a FG attempt from the 40 yard line would be a 57 yard kick.
The term ‘field goal range’ is just an estimate on the abilities of that team’s kicker.
Plus, if the field goal misses, the other team gets the ball at the spot of the kick, not where the ball was snapped. So if a team has the ball on the opponents 40, and they miss the kick, the opponents take over at their own 47 yard line. Since a 57 yard kick is hard to make, teams often would rather punt and allow the other team to start inside their own 20, rather than at midfield. (Because from midfield, the other team simply has to get twenty yards or so to actually be in field goal range.)
Tom Dempsey set an NFL record with a 63-yard FG in 1970. He was born with no toes on his right foot and kicked with a special shoe that had a flattened and enlarged toe surface. (Interestingly, such a shoe is now illegal under an NFL rule known as the Tom Dempsey Rule.) His record was equaled by 3 others and then broken last year by Matt Prater last year who kicked one for 64 yards.
As to the decision on whether to kick it when it’s possible there’s some other factors that might make the coach lean towards a punt:
- weather if they are playing outdoors. A lot of weather conditions can affect the theoretical maximum range and accuracy.
- blocked kicks. Kickers that are going for range close to their max will tend to kick a little lower to maximize distance. That’s easier to block giving the opponent a chance to recover it and run it back.
- returned attempts. Like a kickoff or punt the opponent could put someone back to field the ball if it stays in the field of play and then return it. At short range it’s basically a non-issue. Close to maximum range the chance is there. Alabama forgot that and lost in recent history.
- Time factors. The goal is more points than the opponent at the end not maximizing points. Sometimes coaches value giving the opponent a bigger distance to go to score (presumably taking more time) than the chance of 3 points.
Yeah, that was pretty awesome to watch, it was just last year against Auburn (is that the “Iron Bowl”?), the defender caught the kick in the back of the endzone and ran it all the way back.
I rather like the “rouge point” in Canadian football, where a missed kick that gets downed in the endzone earns the kicking team one point (but the CFL endzone is 20 yards deep and the goalposts are on the goal line) – this also applies to punts, so the punter can sometimes score for his team.
Keep in mind that even bringing the ball back to the line of scrimmage wasn’t the rule until the mid-1970s (it was changed at the same time that the goal posts were moved back from the goal line to the end line, and the regular season overtime rules were introduced - before then, a regular season game tied at the end of the fourth quarter ended in a tie). When Dempsey made his kick, the rule was that a missed field goal was treated like a punt. (This is still the rule in high school football.)
Also, Dempsey’s kick was at the end of the game, so where the other team would have had the ball had he missed was irrelevant; either he makes it and his team wins, or he misses and his team loses.
You don’t try for a field goal from long range unless you need the points. A miss gives the other team advantageous field position. Long range field goals are rarely attempted unless time is running out.