I am not a huge football fan, but I do watch a game or two on occasion.

The first question concerns the Alabama vs. Tennessee game from Saturday. It was an AWESOME game BTW. However, I noticed that on the Tennessee side, in between plays, there were three people. These three people were holding poles, maybe 6-8 feet tall, and in between those poles was a sheet of black cloth, about 30" wide. These three people would hold these poles outstretched, at head level, in between every play. And when the play started they would bring them down out of the way. Obviously they are trying to shield someone, or some info, from the prying eyes of the other team. At first I thought it was probably the head coach, but then I saw them doing this when he wasn't even near them. So, what or who were they trying to conceal? And do other teams do this?

The next question is the half the distance to the goal penalty. Let's say the Bengals are on the Rams 11 yard line and the Rams commit holding, a 10 yard penalty. The Bengals get the ball moved to the 1 yard line. But if the Bengals were on the 9 yard line and the same penalty occurs, the ball only gets moved half the distance, or to the 4.5 yard line. This applies to all penalties that occur close to the goal when the penalty distance is further than the distance to the goal. My question is; when this happens, why not just spot the ball at the one yard line? I am sure there is some reasoning for it, but I cannot figure out why.

My take is that you aren't supposed to understand it. You are supposed to argue about it incessantly preferably forever. If you do figure it out, they, that no-named, faceless cabal that makes rules will change that particular rule next season. That way the fun never stops.

Don't get me wrong, I like football, but I like it better when I don't take it seriously.

I can't speak to the first question. As for the second, I believe the rules say "X yards or half the distance to the goal, whichever is less." So holding on the 11 would be half the distance to the goal but offsides would still be five yards.

On the first question, most teams are doing this now. I don't think it's so much to shield anything, particularly since it would only be from behind. It does give an easy reference point for players on field to look to for play calls, signals etc. I just assumed that was the purpose. And in most cases that will be the OC or DC not the head coach. Or even other players who are holding signs signals and such.

NFL allows in-ear communication to players (some?) but colleges do not.

I'm also assuming they bring them together/down before play gets started so they aren't blocking view of low seats behind wherever they happen to be at that time.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
On the first question, most teams are doing this now. I don't think it's so much to shield anything, particularly since it would only be from behind. It does give an easy reference point for players on field to look to for play calls, signals etc. I just assumed that was the purpose. And in most cases that will be the OC or DC not the head coach. Or even other players who are holding signs signals and such.

I'm also assuming the bring them together/down before play gets started so they aren't blocking view of low seats behind wherever they happen to be at that time.

This.

I was actually at the game. It seemed pretty obvious to me that they are to help the players see the signalmen. When they look to the sidelines all they see is a sea of orange. The black "shields" help them to pinpoint where the signalmen are and give a good background to see the signals. I also noticed that the signalmen each wore different colors which I assume is to help the players understand which signal to use.

BTW, being at that game was absolutely amazing. I had never been to Neyland Stadium before and when I got the opportunity to go, I couldn't turn it down. That was, by far, the best game I've ever been to in my life. The atmosphere was unlike anything that I had ever experienced before. So much energy and the noise level was off the charts. They would get the fans really going on Alabama third downs and the decibel meter that they displayed on the scoreboard was showing anywhere between 110 and 119 which seemed pretty accurate to me. When they kicked that winning field goal, all hell broke loose!

Insane is about the only way I can describe it. Go Vols!

^^^^Did you go down to the river and get a piece of a goal post?

After a bit of pondering, I suggest the black banner might be for advertising purposes. So local TV can superimpose their ads on the national feed. Kind of like they do in baseball with the ad placards behind the plate (easier because they aren't moving reletive to the camera).

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
After a bit of pondering, I suggest the black banner might be for advertising purposes. So local TV can superimpose their ads on the national feed. Kind of like they do in baseball with the ad placards behind the plate (easier because they aren't moving reletive to the camera).

That’s not it. It would almost certainly be green. Technically you can key out any color, but you’d never use black as that’s way too common of a color and you want a color that’s not going to exist anywhere but the area you want to remove.

quote:

Shooting with a green screen involves filming a person or adding visual effects in front of a solid color. Then, by digitally removing or “keying out” that color, you can drop that scene onto the background of your choice in post-production. Removing the colored background is also referred to as “chroma keying.”

On half distance penalties, the downside is what it does to the down. Ie: Does the offense get a new set of downs because the defense screwed up or does that move the offense to 4 and whatever because someone screwed up.

If it’s the offense on their 1 yard line, then the penalty also extends where first down is while the ball stays at the 1.

quote:

Originally posted by DaveL:
I can't speak to the first question. As for the second, I believe the rules say "X yards or half the distance to the goal, whichever is less." So holding on the 11 would be half the distance to the goal but offsides would still be five yards.

Correct. So the OPs scenario the Bengals would not move to the 1 from the 11, but instead to the 5.5 yard line since 10 yards is more than half the distance to the goal.

The only penalty that I am aware of that this is not true in the NFL is defensive pass interference, which results in the ball being moved to the spot of the foul (or the 1 yardline of the fouls occurred in the endzone) regardless of where the original line of scrimmage was. That could technically be a 98 yard penalty.

From the rulebook:

ARTICLE 1. HALF-DISTANCE PENALTY

If the enforcement of a distance penalty would move the ball more than half the distance from the spot of enforcement to the offender’s goal line, the penalty shall be half the distance from the spot of enforcement to its goal line. This general rule supersedes any other general or specific enforcement of a distance penalty.


NFL rules can be pretty complicated and to further complicate things the rules aren’t the same between youth leagues, high school, college and pro football leagues. And they change yearly. Keeping track of them all is pretty difficult for most casual fans. Even when I coached I kept a rulebook on me to reference.

quote:

Originally posted by Mark in Michigan:
^^^^Did you go down to the river and get a piece of a goal post?

Ha! I wish! However, we had a 3-hour drive ahead of us and with everyone on the field or still in the stands, getting out was actually really easy.

I saw that after that field goal the decibel meter was at 124. As loud as a jet engine during takeoff.

Interesting info about the half the distance rule. I did not realize that if a 10 yard penalty occurred on the 15 yard line, they only get to move to the 7.5. I though that half the distance stuff was only enforced if the penalty would put them in the end zone.

The black shields for signal calling makes sense. I could see how it would be hard to see that from the field with a busy sideline.

quote:

Originally posted by DanH:
On half distance penalties, the downside is what it does to the down. Ie: Does the offense get a new set of downs because the defense screwed up or does that move the offense to 4 and whatever because someone screwed up.

If it’s the offense on their 1 yard line, then the penalty also extends where first down is while the ball stays at the 1.

Some defensive penalties come with an automatic first down for the offense and some don’t. And some offensive penalties come with a loss of down and some don’t. As far as I know no penalty that doesn’t come with an automatic first down (or push the line of scrimmage beyond the marker) changes the position of the first down marker, it only moves the line of scrimmage.

So let’s say the Bengals are on offense and Rams on D. Bengals are on their own 25, 3rd down and 10 yards to go with the first down marker being at their 35.

If the Rams commit an offsides penalty that’s a 5 yard penalty. The line of scrimmage moves up 5 yards to the 30, then the 3rd down play is replayed as a 3rd and 5 since the first down marker never changed. If the Rams commit another offsides penalty on the next play, then the 5 yard penalty would push the line past the first down marker, and so the Bengals would get a first down at the 35 and the marker would move to the 45.

But let’s say it’s 3rd and 20 with the Bengals at their 15 and the first down marker at the 35 and the Rams commit a roughing the passer penalty. That’s 15 yards, moving the line of scrimmage to the 30, but also comes with an automatic 1st down too, so the first down marker moves to the Bengals 40 and the next play will be a 1st and 10 play.

There are offensive penalties which can result in a loss of down. Intentional grounding is one. Under certain conditions if the QB throws a pass where it’s clear he’s only trying to avoid a sack and the loss of yards that would accompany that sack, then the penalty is enforced from the spot of the foul (his pass) and the down is lost. So if the line of scrimmage is the 30 and the Bengals have 10 yards to go on a 1st and 10, then the QB commits intentional grounding at his own 21 the penalty would move the line of scrimmage to the 21 and they don’t replay the down. So the next play would be a 2nd and 19 from the Bengals 21.

Like I said it can be confusing but once you dig into the rules and understand the game it starts to make some sense. It’s far from perfect, but something about the way my mind works I really like researching the rules to sports. It’s almost like solving a puzzle sometimes trying to figure out which rules apply when and how the rules interact with each other. I truly enjoyed reading rulebooks when I coached. Sometimes it kinda made me feel like Gordon from Dodgeball though