Okay, so what determines the direction of batting?
Is it, like a pass, determined by the first thing the ball strikes (or in this case the first direction it rolls)?
Or is it, like a fumble out of bounds, determined by where the loose ball eventually gets possessed or becomes dead?
Or is it determined by the player's intent? If the ball is coming "forward" at me and I obviously try to bat it "backward", but it glances off my fingers in another direction that's still forward, did I bat it forward?
In this play, I think the batted ball initially rolls backward - or at least not forward - before curving and rolling forward. By the time the lineman's teammate recovers it, it's beyond the batting location. The lineman's intent - forward or backward - is not discernible to me.
