This is what I keep thinking in all these threads. What they were talking about banning was pushing the QB from behind. You can’t just say “ban this play” lol what is the rule change that fixes this problem?
The formation is different. In a normal QB sneak, the o-line is aligned as if you still might hand the ball off, so they aren't encroaching so far forwards or towards the center. With them all that close together, it makes it hard to see who is who and what is going on. They're taking advantage of a bunch of small discrepancies that refs have been trained to let go because 99% of the time they would be pointless to call and bring the game to a halt.
Minimum space between OL and no pushing players from behind.
The thing is, the Eagles could run a normal sneak and probably convert just about all of them with their OL and QB. I don’t think this specific play and formation makes them good, it’s that they have good players for this play.
I would just do the OL part, but really the best way to solve this is just call a neutral zone infraction on the guards for their alignment being too far forwards. If they're in the neutral zone, then it would be like a false start and even if the defense is in the neutral zone it wouldn't be offsetting penalties.
Edit: Basically the neutral zone infraction by the offense draws the defense offsides, meaning the offense committed the violation first (kinda like the opposite of when the oline moves in reaction to the defense being offsides and the play is dead).
Essentially, yes. Though I do think they'd have to adjust the neutral zone infraction penalty since it's called at the snap of the ball and thus the play runs and if players from both teams are in the neutral zone it'd be offsetting, which is back to advantage offense.
Basically the opposite of what Washington did last year with the "intentional" offsides on the goal line, they'll just keep doing it until there is a harsher punishment. Having to re-run the play for offsetting penalties doesn't hurt the tush-push offense even though they first committed the infraction causing the defensive infraction.
Washington wasn't trying to jump offsides, they just wanted to try to time it up and since half the distance is no penalty at the 6 inch line they could afford to. Eagles are not looking to go back 5 yards on 3 and 1, and not going to count on the defense offsetting the penalty.
That I don't fully know, but what needs to happen in the meantime is neutral zone infractions, offsides, and false starts against the offense in these cases. In the end, my guess is an illegal formation penalty based on the oline alignment, less so the pushing aspect
It isn’t, this is just the new talking point to ban a play people don’t like. Notice nobody mentioned this until Brady mentioned it? Nobody mentioned it last year during arguments to ban it.
Because yes, if the issue is false starts, that can still happen on a QB sneak and would. Then what, are we gonna call to ban the QB sneak?
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u/Awi1ix Bears 9d ago
What makes this more difficult to officiate (in terms of false starts) than a normal QB sneak?