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Fumble out of the endzone: whose ball should it be?

AngusMcFife

By AngusMcFife
in NFL General

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Fumble out of the endzone: whose ball should it be?  

52 members have voted

  1. 1. This rule is being reconsidered by the competition committee. How you answer will determine how well you understand the sport of football, and whether you are a moral or immoral person.

    • Defense (keep rule as it is)
      33
    • Offense (change the rule)
      20

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Soko

Soko

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, Thomas5737 said:

If you punt the ball through the endzone the team on defense gets the ball at the 20. Same as if you fumble through the endzone. They are exactly the same. 

Punting is a designed and strategic turnover, though. The offense is trading possession for field position, that’s specifically what it’s designed for. It would make zero sense for a punt that bounces of the end zone to go back to the offense, because the whole point of punting the ball is to give possession to the other team. 

That logic doesn’t apply to an offense who’s trying to score. Special teams logic and offense/defense logic is different for a reason. If it wasn’t, then an incomplete pass that sails out of bounds would be possession at the spot for the defense - that wouldn’t make sense, right?

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incognito_man

incognito_man

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Football is an entertainment business and the rules should exist to maximize the entertainment value of the product.

High stakes situations are the product of tension from 2 potential, but extremely conflicting outcomes.

The NFL is going to do everything it can to maximize the tension in scoring situations. (It's at this point I'm hoping the light bulb of why they relentlessly market this area of the field as "the red zone" goes off.) An exception to the normal fumble out of bounds rule adds to the high tension nature of the end zone - if you lose the ball there and only there it's either a TD or turnover with no middle ground whatsoever.

The logical argument is they brought in marketing people not philosophers and ethicists when they made the rule book. And fans who like the current rule aren't "afraid of change" - they've just watched enough football to have intuitively figured out that the current rule adds to the tension of the situation. I'm sure everyone here has felt the opposite side of the tension coin too: repeated false starts/encroachments are much more annoying near the goal line compared to when a team is on their own 35 yard line because it's a higher stress, more engaging area of the field. Not that complicated.

 

Can we please go back to replacing various parts of the game with live honey badgers now? This thread has taken a weird turn towards "your free parking Monopoly rules personally offend me".

This is logical, but I don't want to believe it. I'm a rules purist and want to believe that's their guiding light 

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Pugger

Pugger

Posted
Posted
On 12/14/2023 at 8:14 PM, incognito_man said:

The only reasonable answer is to move the ball back to the spot of the fumble and offense keeps it.

I don't get why everyone overthinks this one. It always should have just been this.

Yes, if the offense fumbles the ball forward and it goes out of bounds on the sidelines doesn't the offense get it back and it goes back to the point of the fumble?

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Thomas5737

Thomas5737

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, Soko said:

Punting is a designed and strategic turnover, though. The offense is trading possession for field position, that’s specifically what it’s designed for. It would make zero sense for a punt that bounces of the end zone to go back to the offense, because the whole point of punting the ball is to give possession to the other team. 

That logic doesn’t apply to an offense who’s trying to score. Special teams logic and offense/defense logic is different for a reason. If it wasn’t, then an incomplete pass that sails out of bounds would be possession at the spot for the defense - that wouldn’t make sense, right?

Can you field an incomplete pass? It's a dead ball if not caught. A punt and fumble are both live balls, at least to a certain degree. Kickoffs are live and if that goes through the endzone it is a touchback. Field goals are only live if caught, those are dead balls otherwise.

I'm not saying since all other live balls that go through the end zone result in touchbacks that it is a good reason to make a fumble through the endzone a touchback but it does give it a comparison.

If you fumble through the end zone on 4th down what should happen? Touchback? The other team starts at the spot of the fumble?

Edited by Thomas5737
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Soko

Soko

Posted
Posted
55 minutes ago, Thomas5737 said:

Can you field an incomplete pass? It's a dead ball if not caught. A punt and fumble are both live balls, at least to a certain degree. Kickoffs are live and if that goes through the endzone it is a touchback. Field goals are only live if caught, those are dead balls otherwise.

I'm not saying since all other live balls that go through the end zone result in touchbacks that it is a good reason to make a fumble through the endzone a touchback but it does give it a comparison.

If you fumble through the end zone on 4th down what should happen? Touchback? The other team starts at the spot of the fumble?

Punts are not live balls. If the kicking team tries to field the punt, the ball is dead. Kick offs are also designated turnovers. I don’t see the point in using special teams logic  - opportunities that are largely relegated to voluntary change of possession - when looking at offenses vs defenses. 

Fumbling through the end zone on 4th down - I would call that a touch back since it’s a change of possession. 

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Thomas5737

Thomas5737

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Soko said:

Punts are not live balls. If the kicking team tries to field the punt, the ball is dead. Kick offs are also designated turnovers. I don’t see the point in using special teams logic  - opportunities that are largely relegated to voluntary change of possession - when looking at offenses vs defenses. 

Fumbling through the end zone on 4th down - I would call that a touch back since it’s a change of possession. 

I said a punt is pretty much a live ball. If it hits the receiving team in the head and falls to the ground it's anyone's ball. If a pass does that it's a dead ball. A punt is a live ball, at least for the receiving team. It's illegal touching if the kicking team touches it, no penalty for that though.

 

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Duluther

Duluther

Posted
Posted
45 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

What an absolutely horrifically dirty hit. Pittsburgh has gotten away with this for a long time. Eject that clown.

-_-

Your insinuation is clear. This hit is not definitive proof for your irrational insinuation that the Steelers are a more dirty organization than any or all others.

And I’d refrain from using singular act to define franchises with, or Myles Garrett and his helmet swinging, skull-bashing act puts the Browns towards the dirtiest.

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Thomas5737

Thomas5737

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Duluther said:

-_-

Your insinuation is clear. This hit is not definitive proof for your irrational insinuation that the Steelers are a more dirty organization than any or all others.

And I’d refrain from using singular act to define franchises with, or Myles Garrett and his helmet swinging, skull-bashing act puts the Browns towards the dirtiest.

Wrong thread fellas.

But while we're here...

Steelers' fans donated money to pay for the fines Harrison got for knocking people out. The fans themselves (that donated) have blood on their hands.

 

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