I am a cranky old man, and since it is Halloween and I no longer have a yard to yell at kids to get off of since I moved to a condo, I thought I would dispel some crankiness by posting on a topic I have been boring my Cal season ticket mates for years with every time the circumstance arises:
When a team is backed up against the goal line and a penalty is assessed against them, the penalty often hardly penalizes due to the half the distance rule. For example, if the offense is on its own 2 on first down and has a motion penalty, the yard assessed is the penny of penalties, hardly worth walking off. If the penalty is something like a chop block, the disparity between what happens in the half the distance and regular scenario is even greater.
I have never understood why the rules don't call for compensating options when less than the full penalty is assessed. One option would be, when the penalty is on the offense like the motion penalty mentioned above, that the non-assessed yardage would be added to the line to make. In the case just mentioned, the ball would move to the one and the line to make would move 4 yards forward from the 12 to the 16, making the distance to make the same as if the full penalty was assessed.
An alternate would be, again if it was a penalty on offense, an alternative of loss of down (on 1st through 3rd downs). In the motion penalty example, the ball would remain at the original line, but the down would advance from first to second.
On the defensive side, the offense could be given the option of an extra down in lieu of yardage.
Does anyone else have the same sense that the half the distance rule dilutes the cost of the penalty? Are there other rule changes than the ones I mentioned that would bring more balance?
When a team is backed up against the goal line and a penalty is assessed against them, the penalty often hardly penalizes due to the half the distance rule. For example, if the offense is on its own 2 on first down and has a motion penalty, the yard assessed is the penny of penalties, hardly worth walking off. If the penalty is something like a chop block, the disparity between what happens in the half the distance and regular scenario is even greater.
I have never understood why the rules don't call for compensating options when less than the full penalty is assessed. One option would be, when the penalty is on the offense like the motion penalty mentioned above, that the non-assessed yardage would be added to the line to make. In the case just mentioned, the ball would move to the one and the line to make would move 4 yards forward from the 12 to the 16, making the distance to make the same as if the full penalty was assessed.
An alternate would be, again if it was a penalty on offense, an alternative of loss of down (on 1st through 3rd downs). In the motion penalty example, the ball would remain at the original line, but the down would advance from first to second.
On the defensive side, the offense could be given the option of an extra down in lieu of yardage.
Does anyone else have the same sense that the half the distance rule dilutes the cost of the penalty? Are there other rule changes than the ones I mentioned that would bring more balance?