Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I'm clearly not the expert on the rule-book. But i'm interested if anyone feels there's been an increasing laxness in the enforcement of 1) illegal man downfield and 2) illegal block downfield and 2) Pick plays in the context of the explosion of the screen game.

NWebster » Sun Feb 01, 2015 8:19 pm
"I'm clearly not the expert on the rule-book. But i'm interested if anyone feels there's been an increasing laxness in the enforcement of 1) illegal man downfield and 2) illegal block downfield and 2) Pick plays in the context of the explosion of the screen game."

Part of the second #2 (which everyone knows was meant to be #3) might be attributed to the repositioning
of the Umpire?
All three situations speak to a reassessment of the responsibilities of the Officials. It is a pure numbers matter
with all teams running so many plays with five receivers.
"Flooding a zone," for example, no longer puts extreme pressure on the defense. It affects the officiating crew
as well.
The only accurate monitoring of receiving and defending activity seems to be on the sidelines, the end line
and the goal line. The area 5-7 yards "IN" from the sidelines is where most (by a large margin) of the action
you describe occurs.
Is adding an official (or two) the answer? If not, how do you reassign responsibility?
(The guy who can probably best come up with the answer is tj. Hopefully, he will chime in soon when he gets
a break during his international book-signing tour.)

NWebster wrote:But i'm interested if anyone feels there's been an increasing laxness in the enforcement of 1) illegal man downfield and 2) illegal block downfield and 2) Pick plays in the context of the explosion of the screen game.

Think you brought this up semi-recently? At least within another topic and I agreed then or think I remember agreeing then. Either way, still agree now.