Gaze and Touchback

slup · Post by **slup** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:52 am

A game between 2 friends of mine had the following happening:
Team 1 lines up for a 1T-TD with MA10+sprint
Team 2 rolls a blitz but is unable to blitz the 1-turner but reaches him with a succesful hypnotic gaze
The ball bounces out of the field = touchback
Team 1 gives the ball to the 1-turner (who is gazed) and scores.

There is nothing wrong in the rules about what happened but is it by intent?

olsen667 · Post by **olsen667** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:14 pm

As far as i know, gazed players cannot catch the ball, the player remains gazed until he is activated, thereby he cannot get the ball and move afterwards, he has to move first(to activate the player) and then get a pass or handoff for the TD. Don't know if it's really a "catch", when the coach gives the ball to the player after a touchback, but would make sense..

Another question on this: What happens, if a vamp manages to gaze a ballcarrier?
Does he lose the ball and it bounces?
Found nothing on that....

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:19 pm

olsen667 wrote:As far as i know, gazed players cannot catch the ball, the player remains gazed until he is activated, thereby he cannot get the ball and move afterwards, he has to move first(to activate the player) and then get a pass or handoff for the TD. Don't know if it's really a "catch", when the coach gives the ball to the player after a touchback, but would make sense.

Its a letter of the rules vs spirit. I agree the spirit of the rules would say you cannot give a gazed player the ball. However the letter of the rules would be that a touchback says nothing about catching the ball. As a result I would have to rule that a gazed player can be given a touchback ... be curious if Doubleskulls (Ianwilliams) agrees.

Another question on this: What happens, if a vamp manages to gaze a ballcarrier?
Does he lose the ball and it bounces?
Found nothing on that....

The reason you found nothing is because players that loses their tackle zones don't drop footballs.

Galak

olsen667 · Post by **olsen667** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:26 pm

Thank you for the quick reply, Galak.... Well, i just sort of..., well, it feels right, if a player is gazed to immobility, thereby only able to perform any actions after being activated, one might as well drop a football because he is currently in another mindstate...feels right, but it's flavortext really...
Good to be sure now, it doesn't happen, would be a real pain in the &%$

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:31 pm

fwiw i would say a gazed player can't be given a touchback

though tbh its very rare set of circumstances it would occur in

olsen667 · Post by **olsen667** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:34 pm

True, but these rare circumstances are the hard part for the rules, because you just can't think of all events, that might happen, and for the etreme situations, it's great to have people like Galak and ianwilliams on this forum to give some kind of official ruling on these matters.

reservoirelves · Post by **reservoirelves** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:26 pm

I'm not so sure about this being against the spirit of the rules. I had always assumed that kicking the ball out of bounds was a penalty and the ref just handed the ball to the player your opponent chose. Since a gazed player doesn't drop the ball I figure that he can hold onto it if the ref stuffs it into his arms.

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 8:21 pm

reservoirelves wrote:I had always assumed that kicking the ball out of bounds was a penalty and the ref just handed the ball to the player your opponent chose. Since a gazed player doesn't drop the ball I figure that he can hold onto it if the ref stuffs it into his arms.

This is my belief of how a touchback works as well.

which also guided my ruling that you could give a touchback to a gazed player.

Galak