Football Rule of the Week (Valentines Edition)

[HT721]

Got away from this for a while, but with the new rules being released for next year seems like a good time to start back.

 

7-2-1 After the ball is marked ready for play, each player of A who participated in the previous down and each substitute for A must have been, momentarily, between the 9-yard marks, before the snap.

 

This rule is basically designed to keep players from standing near the sideline and acting like they are in the game on trick plays. For those that don't know the 9 yard marks are the big numbers on the field. This is a call that honestly a crew will miss if they aren't really paying attention to the players between the snaps, especially when a team is running a hurry up.

[barrel]

Do you think crews miss it or just let it go with hurry up offenses? Granted most WR split rules put them on the top of the numbers unless it’s into a boundary.

 

The only real time I see it brought up is during a substitution, or out of a timeout.

 

If we go to the new 40 sec play clock where will this have an effect on when the player has to be between the numbers? My understanding would be there wouldn’t be a ready to play whistle like there is currently.

[HT721]

There should still be a ready for play whistle, play clock will just be running before it’s blown, similar to college and nfl.

[zebraman]

There should still be a ready for play whistle, play clock will just be running before it’s blown, similar to college and nfl.

 

There are limited ready for play whistles in college and NFL. With the 40 second clock, while I have not yet seen the details of how it will work, I would think there will be limited ready for play whistles here as well. So this rule is a good point, how will this rule be impacted? Guess we will find out in a few months.

[barrel]

The 40 second clock won’t be too bad. The 25 second clock after stoppage of play will get people I think. That 25 seconds will go by quick. I might understand it wrong but if a runner steps out of bounds you get 25 seconds. That is one example. I believe after an incomplete pass you get 25 seconds. I could have both of those examples incorrect though.