Written by Alex Kirshner at SB Nation.com
The leaping kick block is one of football’s most exciting plays. For a defender to hurdle a line of blockers and reject a field goal or extra point, he needs impeccable timing and top-notch athleticism. If he does it right, he’ll launch into an explosive jump and cross the neutral zone less than a split-second before the long snapper releases the ball to the holder. It can look downright beautiful.
Kam Chancellor did it against the Panthers in the playoffs a few years ago. His block didn’t count because he ran into the kicker afterward, but I don’t mind pretending it counted. Chancellor read Carolina’s snap count and did something superhuman. It was gorgeous sports.
That’s probably about to be illegal. A week after the NFLPA signaled interest in banning players from leaping over the line of scrimmage to block a field goal, the change is likely to become the law of the professional game.
NFL owners are expected today to pass a rule that will prohibit the “leaper” block attempt on field goal and extra-point plays, per sources.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 28, 2017
College football is likely taking a similar step.
Both the NFL and NCAA currently outlaw leaps in which a leaper who didn’t line up on the line of scrimmage jumps and lands on another player. An NCAA committee has proposed expanding the college rule to ban leaping whether the leaper lands on someone else or not.
There are some loopholes in the current college rule, and it’s not clear if those would survive. The biggest is that a player can’t be penalized if he leaps from the neutral zone or the other team’s side of it. That provision is what most clearly allowed Penn State’s Marcus Allen to leap and block a kick against Ohio State last year, leading to a touchdown runback that turned the Big Ten race on its head.
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