noob questions

[KK84]

That's correct Sarlaac, unless they are in fact holding hockey sticks first.

 

[AgentDib]

The fair catch was an interesting call because it is an example of the inherent subjectivity that makes football so interesting (and officiating so controversial). The player in question is Cedric Peerman, the Bengals third string RB who mainly plays special teams when activated.

The Steelers kicked off and the Bengals had Tate back in the endzone to attempt to run the kick. However, it was a short kick, and so Peerman stuck his right hand out and up a bit like a baseball outfielder to wave off Tate and let him know that he was going to take it instead.

The member of the receiving team must raise one arm a full length above his head and wave it from side to side while kick is in flight. (Failure to give proper sign: receivers’ ball five yards behind spot of signal.) Note: It is legal for the receiver to shield his eyes from the sun by raising one hand no higher than the helmet.

No opponent may interfere with the fair catcher, the ball, or his path to the ball. Penalty: 15 yards from spot of foul and fair catch is awarded.

A player who signals for a fair catch is not required to catch the ball. However, if a player signals for a fair catch, he may not block or initiate contact with any player on the kicking team until the ball touches a player. Penalty: snap 15 yards.

If ball hits ground or is touched by member of kicking team in flight, fair catch signal is off and all rules for a kicked ball apply.
Any undue advance by a fair catch receiver is delay of game. No specific distance is specified for undue advance as ball is dead at spot of catch. If player comes to a reasonable stop, no penalty. For penalty, five yards.

If time expires while ball is in play and a fair catch is awarded, receiving team may choose to extend the period with one fair catch kick down. However, placekicker may not use tee.

The official could have let this go as Peerman's arm did not extend very far above his helmet if at all and was mostly off to the side. However, the appearance of a wave as seen here will lead to this penalty 9 times out of 10. The referee's give the benefit of the doubt to a fair catch signal for good reason, and the flip side is that they have to crack down on players inadvertently making a signal somewhat like a fair catch. In my opinion, this was clearly the correct call because an opposing player could have held uncertainty about whether they were allowed to hit Peerman.

There was a controversial play last year where a punt returner appeared to use shielding his eyes as a fair catch decoy but I can't remember the details off the top of my head beyond that.

 

[gallacher88]

Cheers guys . So many little rules to remember but good people helping out the newbie. Still havin trouble with the clock tho. A get if the ball is out of play it stops and the last 2min it keeps runnin but doesn't always seem to be the case. Like if one team is winning by a margin and they hav possession the clock goes down fast but wen a team is desperate for points and hav possession it doesnt . Might be jus missin something. Sure av seen the clock run rite at the start of a quarter and was sure the ball was out play.

 

[A London Hawk]

This might be useful. The bits I've looked at aren't overly complex.

http://www.nfl.com/rulebook/digestofrules.

 

[onanygivensunday]

Cheers guys . So many little rules to remember but good people helping out the newbie. Still havin trouble with the clock tho. A get if the ball is out of play it stops and the last 2min it keeps runnin but doesn't always seem to be the case. Like if one team is winning by a margin and they hav possession the clock goes down fast but wen a team is desperate for points and hav possession it doesnt . Might be jus missin something. Sure av seen the clock run rite at the start of a quarter and was sure the ball was out play.

Best way is to watch games very closely... and learn for yourself. The rules of American football are very complex.

Many times when it looks like a player has run out of bounds (and the game clock should stop), the referee (side judge) rules that the player was tackled in bounds so the clock should keep running.

Look for the hand signals of the side judge. Crossing his hands over his head indicates to stop the game clock. A raised left hand and rotary motion with the right hand indicates to keep the game clock running.

I assume that you're familiar with timeouts. In case that you are not, each team gets three timeouts per half and the game clock stops during all timeouts. And then there is also the 2-minute warning timeout called by the referee at 2:00 or immediately after the last play completed when the clock strikes 2:00.

Hope that helps.

 

[A London Hawk]

Edited my previous post to actually put the link in.

 

[gallacher88]

Thanks. Got many years ahead to pick it it up. Only get to see two games a week here in uk dont have the premium sports channel. Will get the nfl game pass nx season which gives me the whole regular season of hawks games.

 

[A London Hawk]

In the first examples, the team that's winning is going to run plays that eat the clock. If the losing team doesn't have any time outs left to stop it, then yes, the clock's going to run down fast.

In the second example, the losing team is going to run plays that stop the clock, use time outs and generally run more up-tempo than in the first example, generally known as a two minute drill.