Roughing the passer on an illegal forward pass

[fbljuj]

Sorry if this has already been posted but the defininition of a passer was a player who threw a "legal" forward pass. The word "legal" has been taken out so if QBA11 runs 50 yards downfield and throws an illegal forward pass and gets roughed after he throws the pass, do we have offsetting penalties (rough passer, illegal forward pass)??

[ALRef]

Yes.

[TXMike]

For me, it is going to have to be very late to be a foul and if it is that late, I am going with a "simple" pers foul, not RTP. I suspect the rule change was to prevent "free shots" on a player who is just trying to pass the ball.  If he is trying to both run AND pass then he puts himself at greater jeopardy of being clobbered.

[Kalle]

My guess is that RR wanted to have offsetting fouls in a situation where eg. the team A passer is just beyond the neutral zone. I doubt that there are that many other times we would see an illegal forward pass followed by a lateish tackle. Makes for interesting test questions, though

[ref6983]

I think the intent of this change was really designed to allow RPS on plays that involve intentional grounding or a second forward pass from behind the line. A technical reading certainly allows for it in the other extreme cases noted above, but I don't think we want to go there in practice.