Going by the back foot, all 4 receivers appear evenly lined up and in the backfield, but by the front foot, the one closest to the interior and second from outside appear to be on the los. I guess I don't understand what refs look for in alignment. If I were a head linesman, I think I'd throw 10 flags for lining up in the neutral zone every game, but that rarely gets called.
It was like the 1972 Olympic basketball game for the gold medal. Refs kept putting time back on the clock until the Russians scored the winning basket.
I believe the determination is whether the players head breaks the plane of the center’s ass, to be frank. If the head is behind the center’s butt, he is in the backfield. In my opinion this was hard to tell from the picture. Regardless, I did think that there was an unwritten rule that you don’t call illegal formation on a spike. Make of that what you will. We sure got shafted on a number of calls, but I’m not convinced yet that this one was one of them.
This was definitely one... not counting where their feet are, 2 seem to be lined up at the 20 and the other 2 at the 19.5 yard line... the los is the roughly 18.5 (right were the line judge is standing)... these receivers are all at least a yd off the los or more... there are either 6 men in the backfield or 9 on the los... both are illegal formation...
I hear you. I don’t think the rule is judged by whether they are actually on the line of scrimmage though. The test, I believe, is whether their helmet breaks the plane of the center’s rear end. This angle makes it look like they are actually line up fine to me.
that helmet test is for the linemen only... the tackle's helmet has to break the plan of the center's rear end so that he can't cheat back and the line form's an exaggerated V (if that makes sense)...the receivers are usually lined up on the ball or clearly off the ball so that it's clear if the tackle is covered... by rule, the tackle has to be covered or he has to declare as an eligible receiver to the ref... so technically, the left tackle in this pic would've had to declare himself as eligible because he's uncovered (which he probably didn't)... we got screwed bro...
