Punt Out

I figured that it might be time to step away from the draft. I'm sure that it'll be back soon. The draft is always filled with fantastic nuggets.

It is fascinating to see the evolution of football through the rule changes. It should be noted that the early NFL used the very same rules that college football used. Whatever the Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee decided were the rules of football-college, high school and pro. Only in 1931 did the NFL start looking into and changing rules on their own. Some of the early rules were, shall we say, nutty. The "punt out" rule definitely qualifies. It was thankfully eliminated in 1920, so it was never used in the NFL. Before then, the team that scored a touchdown had to "punt out" to determine where the point after touchdown would be attempted. The "punt out" rule required the scoring team to punt from its own goal to one of its players, who would then make a fair catch. The conversion would be attempted from the spot where the player caught the ball. Teams were now permitted to bring the ball out to any point, normally directly in front of the goalposts, to attempt the point after touchdown. All attempts still had to be done by a placekick. I completely miss any reason why the "punt out" would be a cool thing to do.

Up next: Passing game baby steps. Why on earth did the football decision makers decree that a pass had to be attempted from 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage?