Also on another reading, you might be right about that turning into an offside rule if he’s caught in the neutral zone at the snap. While the NZI rule talks about having to back out of the neutral zone to avoid a penalty, reading further it looks like the offside rule would then apply:
A player is offside when any part of his body is in or beyond the neutral zone or beyond a restraining line when the ball is put in play.
So that would explain why it was called offside. And you’ll notice in that field goal attempt, the play wasn’t called dead, but rather a flag was dropped and the play was allowed to continue (where WFT missed the FG attempt). Of course that penalty was accepted. If they had made the FG they would likely have declined the penalty to not risk missing on a second try.
Yes, this would have been my response. I find it odd that the NZI rule specifies that you can safely retreat to the defensive side of the ball to avoid a penalty, without creating a penalty for the scenario where you enter the neutral zone prior to the snap unless a) you are unimpeded to the quarterback or b) causing the OL to react (or that other weird case that never happens.) It’s just weirdly written, but that case is covered by the offside rule:
ARTICLE 5. OFFSIDE
A player is offside when any part of his body is in or beyond the neutral zone or beyond a restraining line when the ball is put in play.
Another oddity here is that the offside rule doesn’t use the word ‘snap’ - it says when the ball is put into play. This may actually be saying that the snap must be completed - ie, the ball must have left the center’s hands - before a defensive player may enter the neutral zone. If so, I think that Dexter Lawrence play was a lot closer, and he may really have been offside.
I also have no idea what ‘restraining line’ means here.
If you look up “ready for play” in the rulebook it’s never defined, but you can figure it out via context from all the times that term is mentioned. The definition is tautological; basically if you are allowed to start playing then the ball is ready for play. Basically the ball is ready for play when the Referee says it is. When you see the Referee signaling to the offense, or the kicker, or whatever that they can go ahead then that is what is happening.
That is part of a kickoff:
ARTICLE 6. RESTRAINING LINES
The Restraining Lines are lines which restrict the alignment of the kicking and receiving teams during a Free Kick and Fair Catch Kick.
Here is a picture demonstrating the lines:
So that area between the blue line and yellow line are areas a player (of either side) can’t enter prior to the kick. That’s also one of the reason why onside kicks are so difficult to receive; the kicking team can’t recover the ball legally unless it gets past that area.
On a normal kickoff the lines are at the 35 yard and 45 yard markers, but I believe that those lines can change if a penalty is enforced; for example, the receiver who gets a touchdown taunts the defense (I’m looking at you DK) then the kicking team has to kick from farther back on the subsequent kickoff.
This whole discussion emphasizes how freaking complicated gridiron football is. And we’re discussing only the tiniest part of it.
I think “ready to play” is different from “put into play.” “Ready to play” is when the ref says so - they’ve taken care of any lingering issues from the previous play, set the ball, updated down markers, and given the defense a chance to substitute (if relevant). “Put into play” seems to be more synonymous with “snapped.”
That’s why they don’t say that the ball is snapped because that is only one of three situations where a ball becomes a live ball, or put in play. You can be offside on a punt or a kickoff even though the ball is never snapped in either situation. That’s why they use the more generic language of “put in play”.
I love these discussions by the way, I learn so much looking this crap up.
Fair point, but doesn’t really address the question of whether it’s when the center starts to move the ball, releases the ball (which is even more ambiguous when the QB is under center), or some other time. It may just not be clearly defined.
My years of watching football says that it has to be when the center moves the ball (begins the snap) because that is the moment that everyone starts (legally) moving, on both sides.
I’ll share my favorite NFL play of all time to demonstrate, watch how everything happens at the moment of the snap:
That center moving to snap the ball is like the first domino being pushed over or the key in the ignition turning.
While I appreciate sharing the memory, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking for. I think on 90+% of NFL snaps, the D-Linemen are responding the center starting to move the ball, sure, but with their reaction time, they’re not entering the neutral zone until the center has released the ball. The edge case only (well, primarily) comes up when a D-Lineman is trying to time the snap and gets there as the ball is being snapped.
ETA: And frankly, it’s probably so hard for the official to judge, that it wouldn’t really matter if it were defined more precisely in the rules or not.
I think that’s the key. It happens so quickly, we’re talking fractions of a second, that it’s going to be a judgement call. The only reasonable way to handle it, though, is that the ball is in play once the center begins the snap.
Actually, let’s make this simpler. A ball is in play when it becomes live. A ball has to be live to be a fumble. A snapped ball can be a fumble at any point when the ball starts to be snapped. If it slips out of his hands like an oily fish at any point of the snap that is a live ball that people will be diving for. So logically, the ball is in play at the moment he starts doing the snap. I think that’s probably the easiest way to think of this.
That’s a really great point. But that just gets me back to thinking that Lawrence was not offside, but that moving before the rest of your line will almost always get you called for it, fair or not.
I’m from the Cleveland area but still rooted for the Chiefs. Chiefs and Ravens are my top two favorites, so I don’t care who wins there. I like these games where the score is close and you’re not sure who will win til the end. That said, hoping for another Patriots loss
To update a discussion held in last week’s thread: Brown’s Rodney Harrison was fined for pushing the RB coach of the Chiefs. The coach was not punished at all.
I think COVID may have crippled Myles Garrett’s career. He was absolutely dominant the first 8 weeks of last season before he got COVID, and he’s just not been the same since.
So Houston failed to convert a third down by 1 yard, and had 4th and 1.
But one of the Browns players was offside, so they would’ve been able to take the penalty and have 3rd down and try again with 5 fewer yards left to go.
They decline the penalty and punted on 4th and 1. And it was near the Browns 40 too, which is borderline “let’s not bother to punt” territory.
Sam Darnold and the Panthers are doing well. The Jets are struggling. It looks like the problems of the past few years were more with the Jets rather than Darnold. I suppose I should be surprised, but for some reason I’m not .
.