Today's Tidbit... Triple Laterals and the Dead Ball Era

Yesterday's Sunday Night Football game saw the Buffalo Bills dismantle the San Francisco 49ers 35-10 on a snowy field, with one touchdown coming on a spur-of-the-moment lateral by wide receiver Amari Cooper to quarterback Josh Allen. After taking the snap at the 7-yard line, Allen completed a pass to Cooper short of the goal line. As the 49ers' defenders pushed Cooper backward, he threw caution to the snow and lateraled to Josh Allen, who ran to Cooper's left before diving and extending the ball across the goal line for a touchdown.

The Bills did not script the lateral. Few teams have downfield laterals or hook-and-laterals on their play cards today, but those plays abounded in 1935 due to a rule change or two.

Throughout the game's history, debate has raged over whether defensive players should be allowed to advance recovered fumbles. Rugby’s rules allowed anyone to pick up and run with the ball, but defenses advancing fumbles came to be seen as profiting from chance, so the rule makers of 1929 declared the ball dead when the defense recovered a fumble. (Fumbles recovered in the air, and interceptions remained live.) The 1929 rule reduced the riskiness of lateraling in space, so laterals previously used only in extreme circumstances became more common.

('Fumbled Ball Dead In Grid Code,' Grand Rapids Press, February 19, 1929.)

Despite the change, football teams struggled to score in the 1930s, so there was a desire to encourage more laterals. The 1935 committee instructed officials to employ a "slow whistle" when a defender stopped an offensive player's progress but did not take him to the ground. This emphasis allowed more downfield laterals, including more than one per play.