SSOG
Moderator
This post was inspired by the pass interference penalty that Vincent Jackson drew in the end zone against New York, but before someone accuses me of just being a bitter VJax owner and pointing me to the venting thread... I only own VJax in one league, and I'm currently winning by 90 points while my opponent only has Celek left to go. So I'm not burned, I'm not bitter, and I'm not venting. From a fantasy perspective, it's a complete non-issue to me.
Now that this is out of the way, I really don't understand why the NFL doesn't credit yards gained through pass interference as passing/receiving yardage instead of penalty yardage. The WR runs a perfect route, the QB throws a perfect pass. The entire premise behind making it a "spot of the foul" penalty is a "pretend the pass would have been completed without the interference" mentality, so why not award the yards as if it was a completed pass? It'd be like goaltending in basketball- give the offensive player the benefit of the doubt and award credit as if it were a success. It just seems silly to me that one of the biggest and most rewarding offensive plays in the entire game goes completely unrewarded, as if it were just dumb luck and not the result of the WR beating his man, the QB making the correct read and an accurate throw, and the WR putting himself in position to make the play.
While we're at it, I also think that defenders should be credited with a sack on intentional grounding penalties, and in IDP leagues I think defensive linemen should get points for drawing a holding penalty. Any time you have beaten the other team so badly that they commit a penalty to prevent you from making a positive play in the stat sheet, that should count as a positive play in the stat sheet.
Now that this is out of the way, I really don't understand why the NFL doesn't credit yards gained through pass interference as passing/receiving yardage instead of penalty yardage. The WR runs a perfect route, the QB throws a perfect pass. The entire premise behind making it a "spot of the foul" penalty is a "pretend the pass would have been completed without the interference" mentality, so why not award the yards as if it was a completed pass? It'd be like goaltending in basketball- give the offensive player the benefit of the doubt and award credit as if it were a success. It just seems silly to me that one of the biggest and most rewarding offensive plays in the entire game goes completely unrewarded, as if it were just dumb luck and not the result of the WR beating his man, the QB making the correct read and an accurate throw, and the WR putting himself in position to make the play.
While we're at it, I also think that defenders should be credited with a sack on intentional grounding penalties, and in IDP leagues I think defensive linemen should get points for drawing a holding penalty. Any time you have beaten the other team so badly that they commit a penalty to prevent you from making a positive play in the stat sheet, that should count as a positive play in the stat sheet.