Competition Committee refines penalty enforcement when there is a possession change

If one thing is the hallmark of this site, we will explain a rule down to the last detail and try to explain the rationale behind the rule, especially when it comes to rule changes. We are going to get deep into the weeds of the rulebook here; something that has either excited you or caused you to lurch back in your seat.

We have told you about the existence of penalty hoppers, or imaginary buckets, that fouls are mentally categorized in when it comes time to properly enforce penalties. As former referee Ed Hochuli once said, “the key to penalty enforcements is to first get the penalty into the correct hopper, and then apply the enforcement. Most of our confusion arises because we start in the wrong hopper.”

Some of the more confusing penalty enforcements occur when there is a change of possession — not only turnovers, but also punts and kickoffs involve possession changing during the down. When there is a flag on both teams and a change of possession, enforcement is tricky. And in those cases, there isn’t just one hopper, there are three hoppers, and they are each known by an officiating shorthand to make for expedient discussion on the field:

• Fouls by both teams with at least one foul prior to the possession change, or Double/With
• Fouls by both teams after the possession change, or Double/After
• Fouls by both teams with multiple changes of possession on the same play, or Double/Double.

There is one small change made to the Double/With enforcement, and a minor change elsewhere that affects all three hoppers, so we will bring our whiteboard here to explain all:

In a Double/With enforcement where the defense gets the ball with “clean hands” (that is, hasn’t committed a foul up until the moment it gains possession), the offense’s foul is declined so that it can keep the ball, and then the post-turnover foul on the defense is only enforced. The new rule allows that foul by the offense to carry over the possession change if it is a major foul — unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct. This would then offset the defense’s foul at the spot of the defense’s foul. (The defense still retains the option to replay the down and wipe out the possession change.)

An example of this would be on a punt where an up-back pulls the face mask of a potential punt blocker and the receiving team commits a block in the back on the return. Under the old enforcement, the receiving team could enforce the block in the back and wipe out the rest of their return, while declining the facemask or offsetting both and repeating 4th down. The new enforcement allows the receiving team to keep the ball with both fouls offsetting at the spot of the receiving team’s foul.

This makes this major-foul exception practically convert the enforcement to a Double/After, however there are important distinctions, such as how it is handled at the end of the half, that it should remain in the Double/With hopper.

The second change that affects this trio of hoppers is related to the dynamic kickoff rules. If there is also a clean-hands touchdown on the play — think of an interception with a taunting foul after the touchdown and an opponent’s roughness foul on the return. Live-ball and dead-ball fouls are handled together, so the clean-hands score stands as long as the opponent’s foul is declined. The change to enforcement is this post-touchdown foul must be enforced on the extra-point attempt and does not carry forward to the kickoff. If the scoring play is a field goal, safety, or a successful extra-point, then that foul is enforced on the kickoff.