Personal foul question.

[DinwiddieProud]

I assume that it is a judgement call about when forward progress is stopped, and the whistle is blown, and the tacklers should disengage? I saw a play today like this and the players were, maybe 5-6 total from both teams, all going backwards when the group collectively fell to the ground. I was on the sideline close to the play, heard the whistle, and saw the players fall. It was bang, bang, not drawn out. But, the flag flew. What would the official need to see to call this?

 

[White hat]

This is about as subjective as it gets, but in the scenario described I would think an official saw something that was intentional (or looked that way) and met the criteria of unnecessary roughness. Maybe one guy who wasn't part of the pile jumped on it. Or maybe a guy threw a knee at someone or obviously twisted an arm or leg. Piles are ugly places where unpleasantness happens.

 

[White hat]

I saw a punter kick what appeared to be a shanked punt off the side of his foot, but wouldn't you know it, he had a gunner standing out there, behind the line, catch the punt and take off for a TD. It's legal. Hard to do, I imagine, but legal.

Also saw a punter kick the ball straight up. The rushers assumed it was gone and didn't think to look up. The punter caught his own punt and ran for a first down. I thought that was the luckiest play ever, until I saw highlights of that team on two games later that year where they ran the same play again.