Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
I personally feel the 15 yard no yards penalty is the worst rule as you have cover teams running downfield that are severely penalized when a punt is short or hangs up. It's bad enough when a punt is shanked but a lot of times it's compounded by the inevitable no yards penalty due to the ball landing short in a crowd of players. Also how can you expect cover players to run full speed down field only to stop at five yards from the returner then resume running after the catch? Just a silly, silly rule.
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I dislike it for a different reason: in most situations you're asking referees to accurately eye-measure two moving objects from a poor angle with a poor frame of reference. It's a really hard call to make, and sometimes the coverage team holds up and attempts to give the player room, but the ref decides that they were within five yards, it's a massive penalty.
I'd simply call it on intent: if a defender appeared to hold up and intend to give the receiver the five, then it's no penalty or at worst a five yarder. If a guy goes at full speed into the receiver's area without giving him a buffer, then yeah, full 15 yards.