Gridiron questions...

[Felonius_Monk]

Thanks for all your answers. Didn't quite digest all the 4-3/3-4 stuff yet but I'm sure with more watching it'll become more apparent. I'll post more questions when I can think of them.

Here's one I was wondering about - I know that a safety is scored if a player is tackled in his own end zone - why (in that case) does the player not throw the ball out of bounds if he knows he's going to be tackled? Or does this also yield up an automatic safety?

[Drade]

[redhouse]

[k3nt]

[Kuso]

[iceman5]

[The Golden 1]

ripped from a packer fansite

The play in question is as follows. Gado was handed the ball about 5 yards from his own goal line on 1st down late in the game. He ran about 3 yards before being corralled by a would-be tackler. On his way down, Gado seemed to be reaching for the goal line to avoid the safety (at least that’s what it appeared he was doing to this observer). But in the process of reaching, the ball slipped from his grasp, and bounced forward, over the goal line.

Fortunately for the Packers (and Gado), the apparent fumble was fortuitously recovered by a teammate at the 1-yard line. Though the Packers didn’t lose the ball, and though it would probably cost them a safety anyway, it had to have been considered an enormous blunder to have lost the ball near the end zone just after the defense had finished a terrific goal-line stand.

But wait. The football gods (or, in Samkon’s case, God) was smiling down on the Packers this day. The officials decided that instead of fumbling the ball in the process of reaching for the goal line, Gado was actually trying to pass the ball before getting tackled for a safety. Sure he was.

So the officials incredibly called intentional grounding, and then reversed that call later when Mike Sherman rightly pointed out that intentional grounding couldn’t occur on a “pass” from outside the tackle box. And when an offensive holding call was dubiously determined to have occurred outside the end zone on the same play, the Packers had merely lost a down (the penalty was declined), and not an inch of field position. No worse for the wear.

[iceman5]

[k3nt]

No, it was clearly not a fumble. He was trying to throw the ball out of the endzone. He used both hands to do it, but it was clearly intentional.

Oh, and the play was "this year" football wise, but it did take place in 2005, which was what I meant. Sorry for the confusion.

[iceman5]

[emmasdad]