Forward pass
In several forms of football, a forward pass is the throwing of the ball in the direction in which the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line. The legal and widespread use of the forward pass distinguishes gridiron football from rugby football in which the play is illegal. The primary passer is the quarterback, and statistical analysis is used to determine a quarterback's success rate at passing in various situations, as well as a team's overall success at the passing game.
Illegal and experimental forward passes had been attempted as early as 1876, but the first legal forward pass in American football took place in 1906, after a change in the rules. Another rule change on January 18, 1951, established that no center or guard could receive a forward pass, and a tackle may only do so if he announces his intent to the referee beforehand that he will be an eligible receiver, called a tackle-eligible play. The only linemen who can receive a forward pass are the ends. The rules regulate who may throw and who may receive a forward pass, and under what circumstances, as well as how the defensive team may try to prevent a pass from being completed.
Gridiron football
In gridiron football, a forward pass is usually referred to simply as a pass, and consists of a player throwing the football towards the opponent's goal line. This is permitted only once during a scrimmage down by the offensive team before team possession has changed, provided the pass is thrown from behind the line of scrimmage; a pass is legal as long as some part of the passer's body is behind the line of scrimmage. The person passing the ball must be a member of the offensive team, and the recipient of the forward pass must be an eligible receiver and must touch the passed ball before any ineligible player. An illegal forward pass can incur a yardage penalty and the loss of a down, although it may be legally intercepted by the opponents and advanced.If an eligible receiver on the passing team legally catches the ball, the pass is completed and the receiver may attempt to advance the ball. If an opposing player legally catches the ball—all defensive players are eligible receivers—it is an interception. That player's team immediately gains possession of the ball and he may attempt to advance the ball toward his opponent's goal. If no player is able to legally catch the ball it is an incomplete pass and the ball becomes dead the moment it touches the ground. It will then be returned to the original line of scrimmage for the next down. If any player interferes with an eligible receiver's ability to catch the ball it is pass interference which draws a penalty of varying degrees, depending upon the particular league's rules.
File:Matt Hasselbeck drops back to pass.jpg|thumb|left|Matt Hasselbeck of the Seattle Seahawks dropping back to pass against the Green Bay Packers during a 2009 game.
The moment that a forward pass begins is important to the game. The pass begins the moment the passer's arm begins to move forward. If the passer drops the ball before this moment it is a fumble and therefore a loose ball. In this case anybody can gain possession of the ball before or after it touches the ground. If the passer drops the ball while his arm is moving forward it is a forward pass, regardless of where the ball lands or is first touched. At some levels of play, a video replay may be required for the game's officials to conclusively determine if a play is a fumble or a forward pass.
File:Tom Brady and the Miami Dolphins.jpg|thumb|Tom Brady throwing a pass against the Miami Dolphins during a 2009 game.
The quarterback generally either starts a few paces behind the line of scrimmage or drops back a few steps after the ball is snapped. This places him in an area called the "pocket", which is a specific protective region formed by the offensive blockers up front and between the tackles on each side. A quarterback who runs out of this pocket is said to be scrambling. Under NFL and NCAA rules, once the quarterback moves out of the pocket the ball may be legally thrown away to prevent a sack. NFHS rules do not allow for a passer to intentionally throw an incomplete forward pass to save loss of yardage or conserve time, except for a spike to conserve time after a hand-to-hand snap. If he throws the ball away while still in the pocket then a foul called "intentional grounding" is assessed. In Canadian football the passer must simply throw the ball across the line of scrimmage—whether he is inside or outside of the "pocket"—to avoid the foul of "intentionally grounding".
If a forward pass is caught near a sideline or endline it is a complete pass only if a receiver catches the ball "in bounds". For a pass to be ruled complete in-bounds, either one or two feet must touch the ground within the field boundaries after the ball is first grasped, depending on the league rules. In the NFL the receiver must touch the ground with both feet, but in most other codes—CFL, college football and high school—one foot in bounds is sufficient.
Common to all gridiron codes is the notion of control: a receiver must demonstrate control of the ball in order to be ruled in "possession" of it, while still in bounds. If the receiver handles the ball but the official determines that he was still "bobbling" it prior to the end of the play, then the pass will be ruled incomplete. Similarly, if the receiver fails to continue to control the ball after falling to the ground, the pass may be ruled incomplete.
Early illegal and experimental passes
The forward pass had been attempted at least 30 years before the play was actually made legal. Passes "had been carried out successfully but illegally several times, including the 1876 Yale–Princeton game in which Yale's Walter Camp threw forward to teammate Oliver Thompson as he was being tackled. Princeton's protest, one account said, went for naught when the referee 'tossed a coin to make his decision and allowed the touchdown to stand' ".The University of North Carolina used the forward pass in an 1895 game against the University of Georgia. However, the play was still illegal at the time. Bob Quincy stakes Carolina's claim in his 1973 book They Made the Bell Tower Chime:
File:Georgia Tech Auburn football game Thanksgiving 1921.jpg|thumb|A pass in the 1921 Georgia Tech versus Auburn game
In a 1905 experimental game at Wichita, Kansas, Washburn University and Fairmount College used the pass before new rules allowing the play were approved in early 1906. Credit for the first pass goes to Fairmount's Bill Davis, who completed a pass to Art Solter.
1905 had been a bloody year on the gridiron; the Chicago Tribune reported 19 players had been killed and 159 seriously injured that season. There were moves to outlaw the game, but United States President Theodore Roosevelt personally intervened and demanded that the rules of the game be reformed. In a meeting of more than 60 schools in late 1905, the commitment was made to make the game safer. This meeting was the first step toward the establishment of what would become the NCAA and was followed by several sessions to work out "the new rules".
The final meeting of the Rules Committee tasked with reshaping the game was held on April 6, 1906, at which time the forward pass officially became a legal play. The New York Times reported in September 1906 on the rationale for the changes: "The main efforts of the football reformers have been to 'open up the game'—that is to provide for the natural elimination of the so-called mass plays and bring about a game in which speed and real skill shall supersede so far as possible mere brute strength and force of weight." However, the Times also reflected widespread skepticism as to whether the forward pass could be effectively integrated into the game: "There has been no team that has proved that the forward pass is anything but a doubtful, dangerous play to be used only in the last extremity." John Heisman was instrumental in the rules' acceptance.
In Canadian football, the first exhibition game using a forward pass was held on November 5, 1921, at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, between the McGill Redmen football team and visiting American college football team the Syracuse Orangemen from Syracuse University. The game was organized by Frank Shaughnessy, the head coach of McGill. McGill player Robert "Boo" Anderson is credited with the first forward pass attempt in Canadian football history.
The forward pass was not officially allowed in Canadian football until 1929.
First legal pass
Most sources credit Saint Louis University's Bradbury Robinson from Bellevue, Ohio with throwing the first legal forward pass. On September 5, 1906, in a game against Carroll College, Robinson's first attempt at a forward pass fell incomplete and resulted in a turnover under the 1906 rules. In the same game, Robinson later completed a 20-yard touchdown pass to Jack Schneider. The 1906 Saint Louis University team, coached by Eddie Cochems, was undefeated at 11–0 and featured the most potent offense in the country, outscoring their opponents 407–11. Football authority and College Football Hall of Fame coach David M. Nelson wrote that "E. B. Cochems is to forward passing what the Wright brothers are to aviation and Thomas Edison is to the electric light."While Saint Louis University completed the first legal forward pass in the first half of September, this accomplishment was in part because most schools did not begin their football schedule until early October.
In 1952, football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg discounted accounts crediting any particular coach with being the innovator of the forward pass. Stagg noted that he had Walter Eckersall working on pass plays and saw Pomeroy Sinnock of Illinois throw many passes in 1906. Stagg summed up his view as follows: "I have seen statements giving credit to certain people originating the forward pass. The fact is that all coaches were working on it. The first season, 1906, I personally had sixty-four different forward pass patterns." In 1954, Stagg disputed Cochems' claim to have invented the forward pass:
Stagg asserted that, as far back as 1894, before the rules committee even considered the forward pass, one of his players used to throw the ball "like a baseball pitcher".
On the other hand, Hall of Fame coach Gus Dorais told the United Press that "Eddie Cochems of the Louis University team of 1906–07–08 deserves the full credit." Writing in Collier's more than 20 years earlier, Dorais' Notre Dame teammate Knute Rockne acknowledged Cochems as the early leader in the use of the pass, observing, "One would have thought that so effective a play would have been instantly copied and become the vogue. The East, however, had not learned much or cared much about Midwest and Western football. Indeed, the East scarcely realized that football existed beyond the Alleghanies..."
Once the 1906 season got underway, many programs began experimenting with the forward pass. On September 26, 1906, Villanova's game against the Carlisle Indians was billed as "the first real game of football under the new rules". In the first play from scrimmage after the opening kicks, Villanova completed a pass that "succeeded in gaining ten yards". Following the Villanova-Carlisle game, The New York Times described the new passing game this way:
Another coach sometimes credited with popularizing the overhead spiral pass in 1906 is former Princeton All-American "Bosey" Reiter. Reiter claimed to have invented the overhead spiral pass while playing professional football as a player-coach for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics of the original National Football League. While playing for the Athletics, Reiter was a teammate of Hawley Pierce, a former star for the Carlisle Indian School. Pierce, a Native American, taught Reiter to throw an underhand spiral pass, but Reiter had short arms and was unable to throw for distance from an underhand delivery. Accordingly, Reiter began working on an overhand spiral pass. Reiter recalled trying to imitate the motion of a baseball catcher throwing to second base. After practice and experimentation, Reiter "discovered he could get greater distance and accuracy throwing that way". In 1906, Reiter was the head coach at Wesleyan University. In the opening game of the 1906 season against Yale, Reiter's quarterback Sammy Moore completed a forward pass to Irvin van Tassell for a thirty-yard gain. The New York Times called it "the prettiest play of the day", as Wesleyan's quarterback "deftly passed the ball past the whole Yale team to his mate Van Tassel". Van Tassel later described the historic play to the United Press:
The football season opened for most schools during the first week of October, and the impact of the forward pass was immediate:
- On October 3, 1906, the Des Moines Daily News reported "probably the first use" of the "long forward pass" in the University of Missouri's 23–4 win over Kirksville Normal School.
- On October 4, 1906, Princeton opened its season with a 22–0 win over Stevens. Press accounts indicate that Princeton put the forward pass to good use, as "old-time football gave way to the new game".
- On October 4, 1906, the Carlisle Indians beat Susquehanna University 40–0, as "the forward pass was used for a number of good gains".
- On October 4, 1906, Harvard defeated Bowdoin 10–0 "in a hard-fought contest that was featured by a newfangled and daring forward pass that Crimson worked in the closing minutes of play".
- On October 4, 1906, Williams College defeated the Massachusetts Agricultural College, scoring the game's only touchdown on a forward pass by Waters.