If one pays attention to the wide receivers as they line up, you’ll sometimes see them pointing to an official on the sideline, to check whether they are on the line of scrimmage or not. Apparently, sometimes, they don’t check, or they get into trouble if the offense shifts formations.
Agreed – one particularly sees this with the offensive tackles (the linemen that are furthest away from the center), on likely passing plays. They offset themselves a bit from the actual line of scrimmage, to give themselves a smidge of a head start on backpedaling to pass block, and setting up the edges of the quarterback’s pocket.
I honestly can’t decide if it happens more or less in the NFL with the change to kickoff procedure a few years ago. I feel like it’s more, but I have zero actual data.
I would suspect less; with the new rules on kickoffs, everyone on the kicking team (except the kicker) has to be stationary, and on or behind the line where the ball is placed, prior to the ball being kicked. The only way you would get an offsides now is if a player accidentally lined up past the line, or took off early – but as they are all standing there, and looking at the ball as it’s kicked, I don’t imagine that it happens frequently.
Previously, the kicking team lined up several yards behind the line, because they were allowed to take a running start (but weren’t supposed to cross the line before the kick), and I suspect that it was easier to cross the line too early.
As far as I know, it’s been “illegal motion” at least as far back as the 1970s, and possibly before. Illegal motion penalties are usually, if not always, called on players who are in the backfield, and the term “back in motion” is commonly used to describe a player who’s legally in motion; I suspect that “backfield in motion” is an intentional double-entendre.
In the NFL? I don’t think the palpably unfair penalty has ever been called during an NFL game.
For college football, there may be more recent examples, but a personal favorite involves my Rice Owls awarded a touchdown when a player came off the Alabama Bench during '54 Cotton Bowl to tackle a Rice player. He thought they would only get a 5 yard interference penalty from the spot of the tackle but the refs called for a palpably unfair act instead.
This was back in the days when the idea of Rice beating Alabama would not cause immediate and uncontrollable laughter.
Pretty sure it has never been called in the NFL. Usually what happens is a team does something that could be called that (like the Ravens basically holding every player to run out the clock) and the next day the NFL goes “hey, next time that happens it’s going to be called an unfair act.” You can get away with it as long as you’re first.
It’s 4th down for the Ravens, and they’re up by 7. If they punt the ball, there will be time left on the clock, giving the Bengals a chance to tie. So what they’re doing is holding the other team (holding is illegal) so they can burn the clock out to 0.
If a game can’t end on any type of foul, then the offense can exploit this when fouling in an effort to complete a last second winning play. If the play fails due to the foul being called, they get another chance at a play.
The game also doesn’t have provision to add time to the clock, or turn the ball over due to a penalty. So, if the penalty was accepted, we don’t accept the result of the play, so the offense still has the ball, it’s still 4th down, and there are now 0 seconds on the clock, which they can run out on the next play, ending the game.
