Today's Tidbit... Eligible Receivers and the Sideline
Today's Tidbit... Eligible Receivers and the Sideline
Sometimes, a picture is worth 1,000 words, but today's picture, including the title of this post, is worth only 594.
Football has many rules enacted for reasons that no longer apply, yet we continue following them as long as they make sense under today's conditions. An example of such a situation is the roughing the punter penalty, enacted for reasons that had nothing to do with ensuring the punter's safety.
Another example of this type is the 1924 rule, which made eligible receivers ineligible when they stepped out of bounds during play. The reasoning behind that rule seems straightforward, but there were some critical differences in the rules back then, including the field's lack of hash marks.
Before hash marks arrived in 1933, when a player was tackled on the field of play, the next play started from that spot, regardless of how near or far they were to the sideline.
Teams regularly started plays along the sidelines, so they had sideline formations and plays in their repertoires. In most cases, teams ran their plays away from the sideline, but the second and third pictures below show teams breaking the tendency and running the ball right along the sideline.
That brings us to the picture worth 594 words. The image below shows a play from the 1915 Minnesota at Illinois game. Illinois is on offense in the lighter-colored helmets with friction patches on the jerseys of their eligible receivers. The Illini are throwing a pass on a sideline play, with the ball in the air immediately to the left of the stands in the background to the right.
Also noticeable in the image is the Illinois right end or right halfback, a yard or more out-of-bounds on the play. Back in 1915, football did not have a rule against eligible receivers going out of bounds, so teams stuck along a sideline sometimes had their receivers take a roundabout path when going long. Also, unlike today, the suite of rules banning coaching from the sideline kept the sidelines free of assistant coaches, substitutes, and other debris, giving receivers a clear path along the sideline until they stepped back onto the field to catch the pass.
Periodic comments were made about the need to make receivers ineligible once they stepped out of bounds, such as:
In attempting to make successful forward passes when close to the sideline some mentors have evolved plays in which the end nearest the chalk mark runs out of bounds and down the field 10 or 5 yards and then suddenly cuts back into the field to receive the throw. Although this may be said to be contrary to the spirit of the rules, there is nothing in the code to prevent it.
'Football Rules Committee Has Several Points Which Need Legislating,' Grand Forks Herald, October 21, 1916.
The rule-makers of 1924 finally took the time to make our boys ineligible. They made a complementary rule in 1926, making players who stepped out of bounds on kicking plays ineligible to recover fumbled kicks and punts, though they were allowed to make the tackle.
Once hash marks entered the game, neither of these penalties was needed much, but the ineligible receiver penalty stayed in place. In 1978, it was amended along with other rules to open up the passing game. In that case, an eligible receiver forced out of bounds by the defense could return to the field to catch the ball.
The rule only comes into play occasionally now due to restrictions on defenders contacting receivers downfield, but it still happens. It just doesn't happen as often or for the same reasons as it once did.
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Great images and article explaining the long lost formation, rules, and concepts used by our football forefathers. Really makes one appreciate the modern rules and how they came about. Great job!