use Seneca as a holder?

once d-backs figure it out that rule change is going to force offenses to stay away from the sidelines more. a fade into the corner of the end zone isn’t going to be very effective if the defender can just forget the ball and throw the receiver out of bounds. what are they going to do if the defender just catches the receiver and piggybacks him to the sideline? it’s going to be weird.

how does everyone think this will effect two minutes offense and last minute comebacks?

I’m not saying we would have beaten the Pack, but the zebra’s new-found sense of leniency really hurt us.I was surprised they got rid of the force-out rule. The most obvious answer to John question is that it will negatively affect two-minute drills and last ditch comebacks. However, it is good to see a rule change favour the defence and if offences prepare in new and innovative ways we could see a new dimension of two-minute offence

I approach this problem from a different angle than most I think. For me, the practical effects of if the rule benefits the offense or the defense are secondary and the real issue comes from how it effects the integrity of the game.

The force-out rule upsets the the essential point of competition between the DB and the WR. At its most basic level, you have two guys competing in a game of balance, speed, reactions and leaping ability trying to get at a ball literally being thrown up for grabs. Now along a significant portion of the field, the DB does not really have to compete in this contest and just needs to stay close enough to push the WR out. Fades are all but gone from the game this way.

I agree that the league has gone a long ways towards making the DB’s job more difficult the past few years, but this is a misstep in my opinion.

but I think it just makes sense from a Football standpoint. If a defender makes a legal play at the offensive player, he should be allowed to knock him out of bounds in the course of making that play. The rule was too subjective the way it was before. Also:

...the force-out rule… if a player does not get his feet down and is forced out of bounds it is now an incomplete pass. The caveat to that is if he is clearly going to come down but a player carries him out. The force-out happens far less often than you would guess, the referee who sat with us, Pete Morelli, saying about 14 times last season.

So. they can still call a forceout if I guy is going straight up inbounds and his momentum clearly would have brought him down in bounds. I don’t think passing games will be any different from the rule change. Some of the other changes may have more of an effect:

There are no 5-yard facemasks anymore. Only 15-yard intentional facemask penalties.

A direct snap from center to QB that is not touched is now a live ball. It used to be dead if it was not touched.

All muffed handoffs are now live balls.

An offensive player (Marion Barber) can no longer grab a defensive player’s facemask or it is a 15-yard penalty.

Defensive players can now wear speakers in their helmets.

No incidental facemask helps offense. Muffed snaps/handoffs being whistled dead almost never happened that I can recall. It will be interesting to see how much offensive facemask penalties are called—hardly ever would be my guess.

As for the defensive “QB helmet”, it remains to be seen how that will play out. Neither Lofa nor Russell want to wear it, so apparently Deon Grant will have it. That doesn’t make much sense to me and I think they should just tell Lofa that he’s wearing it, then have Marshall stay quiet most the time. If Grant wears it, maybe it would be Mora talking to him in the earpiece.