Friday night we had something I've really never seen before. Team A scores a TD and lines up for the extra point. Linemen are upright with their hands at their thighs. Snapper is in position to snap the ball. The holder barks out a command, and all linemen except the center step down toward the center with their closest foot...interlocking behind the adjacent lineman, and then they put their hand down in a 3-pt stance.
Is this simulating the start of a play? I'll tell you what we did after we get some poll answers.
A couple of factors are how they did it, when they did it, and what was the score. These are things to consider. If it was their first score and they didn't do it too quick, that is one thing. If they had scored a few times before, they are behind by 1 late in the game, so going for 2 would be a benefit them and then they do it, that is another.
We had a team that we had worked at least one game a year for several years and they never did anything fancy on punt plays. The second time we had them a few seasons ago, in a game between two undefeated teams they did the following. It was early in the 4th qtr in a close game and they lined up to punt for probably the 3rd or 4th time in the game. The up man who called the cadence said "go" which was normal for them, and the 7 guys on the LOS went from a 2 pt stance and abruptly dropped to a 4 point stance, grunting in the process. They had never done anything like this ever before in any game. Well the defense reacted and contacted a couple of the linemen. We didn't have to talk long about it, and my H, U, and I all agreed it was a FST on the offense. The coach was a little hot so I went and explained it to him but he knew we were right and settled down pretty quickly. So, like I stated above, it depends on a few factors.
