New Rule

After this weekends tournament I noticed the new rule with the blocking on the WR screens had many issues. It seems like this rule will be a talking point/arguing point through the 2010 season, lol. Every time a team ran this play, someone was yelling that the blocking was too early. The Ohio teams argument was they can block DB's if the ball was on behind the line of scrimmage, or the other argument I heard was the WR wasnt blocking but rather the DB was engaging him on bump and run.

I think this is gonna be hard for the officials and I think a lot of teams are going to have to adjust because this is a lot of teams bread and butter.

So will see how it plays out, I just dont want to read posts all year bitching about this rule being/not being called correctly....

Any other thoughts?

it was talked about at last weeks captains meeting with the refs that were there. i don't remember the exact rule but i believe the interpretation is in the usftl rule book if you have one of those you could probably check it out in there.

Rob

In the USFTL rulebook it says that you cannot block downfield while the ball is in the air on a forward pass, even if the forward pass is behind the line of scrimmage. For example, on a stand up screen, you technically cannot block the corner or linebacker (downfield) until the receiver has caught the ball. I can't imagine this would be called in a game, but if you're going by the rulebook, no blocking downfield before the catch. I dont have the page number of the rule, I borrowed BJ's rulebook at the meeting to find it, but thats what it said.

Danny - Killswitch

Congratulations to the Giants on the championship, way to represent Buffalo!

I think the interp is that if its a backwards pass the offense can pass protect on that reception. the idea being that u are now setting up a "double pass" its a grey area that hopefuly will be interp. the same way in every game by every ref.....yea right. I'd say half of our officials arent even familiar with or dont even own a rule book.

YOU ARE SO RIGHT, OUR OWN REFS DONT KNOW THE RULES!!!!!!