Forward Progress

I had splendid plans for this article – unfortunately, my efforts resulted in the following:

What’s the deal with “forward progress?” It is, in my opinion, a necessary rule to prevent a defender from carrying the ball carrier up the field and dropping him in the end zone for a safety. However, the rule seems inconsistent, well, I should say: the rulings seem inconsistent. I ought to mention at some point (now is as good as any) that I have no idea what the rule actually says. Furthermore, I have no aspiration to find out because, like my father often facetiously asks, “why complicate the issue with facts?” (Note while I’m thinking about it: commentators need to read rules straight out of rule books more often during games; it provide comfort to all involved to know that some order does, in fact, exist). Since I don’t know how the forward progress rule reads, I decided to write a “reverse rule” (a rule written to encompass the various rulings I’ve seen). Frankly, this was a bitch to write. The following is Revision IL (49):

(Start “official” rule)
Definition of terms:
Ball carrier – a player who has secured possession of the football
Location 1 – the best field position achieved by the ball carrier during a play
Location 2 – the location where the ball carrier was tackled

Rule Verbiage:
When Location 2 is in worse field position (from the view point of the offense) than Location 1, the play will result with the ball spotted at:
a) Location 2 if the ball carrier voluntarily sacrificed field position in an attempt to gain field position
b) Location 1 if the ball carrier lost the field position as a result of:
i) his own backward momentum upon achieving possession
ii) being physically forced backwards by defender(s)
Exception 1: if a the ball carrier initially lost field position due to (i) or (ii) above, and then attempted to regain position in what the field official determines to be a “realistic attempt” then the ball will be spotted at Location 2.
(End “official” rule)

Note: exception 1 refers to the situation when a player is knocked back 5 yards, struggles to maintain his footing for a some time (during which he loses, say, another 5 yards), then tries to advance the ball but doesn’t gain back any of the yards he lost.

If that’s all the deeper it went, then the forward progress issue would merely be a midsize nightmare. However, the nightmare quickly matures into full-blown bedlam when a fumble is introduced into the mix and how to determine whether or not the fumble should “count” due to its being before or after a player lost forward progress. Writing another reverse rule (a little more mockingly this time) would result in the following:

(Start “official” rule)
When the ball carrier fumbles or is stripped of the football, the fumble does not “count” if the field official decides (after the fumble, mind you) that prior to the fumble, there existed a good moment in time for that play not to continue anymore.
(End “official” rule)



(just take a moment to reflect…maybe even chuckle)



(by the way, 49 in Roman numerals is XLIX, not IL)



Contrary to what you may be thinking, I actually have some suggestions to “fix” this relative football anarchy.

If I were God of the World, this is how I would write the rules:

(Start “Alberty” Rules)
The play is ruled dead when (and only when) the ball carrier:
a) is ruled down by contact
b) steps or is forced out of bounds
c) throws an incomplete (legal) forward pass

Any fumble or strip that happens before the play is dead (as ruled above) “counts.”

After the play, assuming no fumble, the ball is always spotted at the best position the ball carrier achieved (Location 1).
(End “Alberty” Rules)

Think about what this would mean. First off, a play would never be blown dead before a player goes down simply because he is swarmed by the defense and being forced backwards. Currently, this happens roughly 6 times a contest. Furthermore, any strip that occurs during that scenario would be a legitimate fumble. Although this at first seems harshly unfair to the ball carrier, I would argue that all it really does is shift responsibility to the ball carrier to go down when swarmed and not futilely fight for yards and risk a fumble. It also takes the power away from the officials to “bail out” the ball carrier after the ball carrier’s over-zealousness ultimately resulted in a fumble – power I feel is often grossly abused by officials (suspiciously almost entirely in favor of the home team). Remember, under these rules there is no penalty for the ball carrier to voluntarily go down, since he will always be awarded his best field position (Location 1). That in itself would be a huge difference. Think about a player in the open field: there would be nothing (“rules-wise”) deterring him from reversing his direction and sacrificing 30 yards in an attempt to break the big one. But what a great improvement to the game that would be! The best and most memorable plays in football happen exactly that way (think Seneca Wallace). There would constantly be jaw-dropping plays of players running 200 total yards just to gain 25…true open-field athleticism (I like to call it “electricity”) would be allowed to shine bright. Another consequent change to the game (possibly not so appealing) is that a QB sack would always result in the ball being spotted at the QB’s best position (likely wherever he obtained possession). Although I’m not a huge fan of that, at least it provides consistency. Also, there would be additional motivation for offenses to operate under-center instead of the shotgun – something of which many football “purists” would approve.

It can be argued that these changes in rules would improve the game, and the opposite can be argued. But at the very least, the rule would be simple, consistent, and would greatly reduce the capacity of a ref to make a very questionable judgment call that consequently determines the outcome – something I, for one, am growing increasingly tired of.