Quote:
Originally Posted by AnonEmouse
No it's not, as Apke carried it into the endzone:
The rulebook also gives a breakdown of when touchbacks can be ruled as seen below. These scenarios can only occur if the ball was sent over the goal line by the offensive or kicking team. A touchback occurs when:
The ball is dead in the opponent’s possession in its end zone
The ball is out of bounds behind the goal line
A kick has not been touched by the receiving team and the ball:
Touches the ground on or behind the receivers goal line
Touches a player on the kicking team who is touching the ball on or behind the receiver’s goal line
Touches a player on the kicking team who has touched the ground on or behind the receiver’s goal line and has not re-established himself in play
Any legal or illegal kick, other than one which scores a field goal, touches the receiver’s goal posts
If the kicking team interferes with the receiver’s ability to catch the ball or call fair catch while they are in their end zone
If a player of the kicking team illegally catches or recovers a scrimmage kick in the field of play, and carries the ball across the goal line, or touches the goal line with any part of his body while in possession of the ball
A touchback is called if any of these scenarios occur. If a team is award a touchback off a kickoff, that team starts with the ball on their 25-yard line. If a touchback occurs not on a kickoff, then the team starts with the ball on their 20-yard line.
It doesn't matter if it touched the returner or not, he should know NOT to advance the ball, especially into the endzone.
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Agree on the last part. Doesn't matter if the ball touches the returner or not, you can't advance the ball either way... But I really don't understand the rule you posted: how can something that happened after the ball is dead impact the play ?
To me, and I remember NBC's rules analyst said so too, the rule you posted is meant to apply to a player of the kicking team trying to down the ball just outside the endzone, if he touches the goal line with his feet just when or right after he catches the ball, then it's a touchback. But when Apke catches the ball at the 9 by rule the ball is dead, anything that happened after that shouldn't count.
Found the rule your example refers to, I don't understand it to be written to apply to this situation at all:
"If a player of the kicking team illegally catches or recovers a scrimmage kick, other than a field-goal attempt from beyond the 20-yard line, and
touches the goal line with any part of his body while in possession of the ball, the ball is dead, and the result of the play is a touchback."
It clearly describes a bang bang situation when the ball is caught and at the same time/right after a body part of the player crosses the goal line... otherwise they wouldn't specify "the ball is dead", cuz in Apke's situation the ball was already dead way before he crossed the goal line.
Good example of a badly written rule IMO.