FidelisHawk":1xjxdxpa said:Great, let’s rewrite another rule that leaves whether it’s legal or not up to the referee’s discretion, and not what happens on the field. :34853_doh:
It's a lot easier to determine if the receiver was behind the passer than it is to determine if the ball went forward at least 1mm while both players were running during the lateral process (plus the ref's own speed and the illusion created by a parallax viewpoint). Most lateral plays you see are at the end of the game with guys throwing it backwards while practically stationary, when it's "clear and obvious". There's no way refs are going to be able to flag a lateral like last night's in real time, which is why they didn't in the first place.
This is probably a rule that needs to be updated, since laterals have pretty much died as part of the running game due to the advent of the forward pass. For as infrequently as laterals happen due to their risk and difficulty, it's not like teams are going to start abusing it and racking up yards and scores from it if the rule changed from 'toward the goal line' to 'behind the player lateraling the ball'.