- Thread starter
- #881
Look it’s really simple, offensive and defensive players have equal right to the ball when its in the air. If a defender is going for the ball and unintentionally collides with the receiver then its not PI. The key aspects is that he legitimately has to be going for the ball and he can’t deliberately go through a defender to get it (that’s why safeties can’t just plow through a TE on a hook route fx).
And to those claiming you can just teach defenders to look for the ball and then run into the receiver, you’re either not understanding that the path to the ball has to take you through the receiver and the contact must be unintentional or you think you can teach defenders to magically know where the ball is going before it’s thrown (good luck with that).
The problem is that its a very subjective call for the officials and most favor the receiver even when they shouldn’t.
That's literally what happened. The defender plowed the WR "going for the ball". (Although the ball was nowhere near them at the time) Unintentional or not, as long as I've been watching football, I've always understood it as a defender can't plow into a WR with the ball in the air.
They wouldn't have to magically know where the ball is going... See the ball going to the WR you're covering, turn your head and plow him instead of going after the ball. The defender is now "going after the ball". That was what happened on that particular play.