Talk:Safety (gridiron football score)

message: The article isn't completely clear. Can a one point saftey only be scored following a PAT try? 
What about other plays from scrimmage? Specifically: a defensive player intercepts the ball at the 1yd line and then carrys the ball back into his own end zone where he is tackled. What is the result of this play? - 51.7.144.71 (talk) 09:33, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The one-point safety can only occur on a try (i.e., conversion attempt). The situation that you describe is the standard two-point safety. WHPratt (talk) 18:11, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  One Point Saftey 

message: Shouldn't this be split into two separate articles, since the word means two totally different things in American football?  Miraculouschaos 16:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Only if there's enough information on the safety position. I think the defensive back article should cover it. -- Mwalcoff 01:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I suppose the only way this could happen is if the scoring team decided to do it on purpose, or somehow a fumble was kicked around down the field all the way to the other end. -- Mwalcoff 17:37, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I think the language of the rule on nfl.com implies that the safety is a way of scoring the XP for the offense, meaning the defense has to obtain possession outside of the endzones and bring it back into the endzone to score the safety for the kicking team, hence the impossibility due to the ball being dead on possession by the defense 71.36.198.148 00:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Split

message: If I'm not mistaken, if the offense commits a holding penalty in their own end zone then that results in a safety.  The same may be true of intentional grounding, but I'm not sure.  I looked at the NFL rules on safeties and the only conditions it lays out for a safety in that situation is "Offensive team commits a foul and spot of enforcement is behind its own goal line".  That seemed pretty vague at first, but I think it's jogged my memory and now I'm thinking that any offensive penalty committed in the end zone results in a safety.  Perhaps someone who is positive about the rules could add a couple sentences about this?
Also, in the third paragraph of the Safeties on conversion attempts section it says "Another scenario would be if Team B had blocked the [extra point] and began to run it back for two points, but at the last moment a pursuer from Team A knocked the ball loose. If he were to pick up the ball, run into the endzone and be tackled, Team B would score one point, and the score would then be 6-1."  Just to clarify, that would be the resulting score if the player on Team A who recovered the ball mistakenly ran into and was tackled in Team B's end zone?  It's a little unclear.  There's a couple of places in this article where it says "the end zone" without being specific about which end zone, and even as a lifelong football fan I had to think for a second as to which one it was talking about.  That might be even more confusing for readers who aren't very familar with the game. BACON 04:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The rule is that any offensive penalty where the spot of enforcement is in the end zone results in a safety. For some penalties, like illegal procedure, the spot of enforcement is the line of scrimmage, so it would not be a safety. -- Mwalcoff 23:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Penalties resulting in safeties 

message: I removed this from the article, because it doesn't make any sense: "In order for the offense to score a one-point safety, a member of the defensive team would have to intentionally bat a fumble into the endzone (over 90 yards away) without taking possession of the ball."  On a touchdown conversion attempt, the DEFENDER'S end zone wouldn't be 90 yards away, it would be just a few yards "behind" them!  You score a safety in your own end zone, not in the one downfield. User:68.161.28.157 13:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NFL safety after touchdown? 

message: I saw a game this year with what I think may be a new and very clever strategy involving an elective safety. It is not something that will come up in a game often but may be of interest to football geeks. What's different about it is that it involves the team trailing giving up a safety. Since it is fairly obscure I leave it to you regulars whether to add it to the elective safety strategy section.
On November 18, 2006, UAB trailed Southern Miss by 3 points late in the game. UAB faced a 4th and long from their own 2 with under a minute to go. If they couldn't gain 37 yards Southern Miss would take over on downs and run out the clock. The quarterback got the ball, ran into the endzone, and went through his receivers. None were open for the necessary yardage so he took a safety with 38 seconds to go. Game over and Southern Miss wins by 5 right? No! UAB apparently set up this play realizing they could get another shot at winning the game even if unsuccessful on 4th down by taking the safety and going for an onside kick on their free kick. They didn't recover it. But it was a clever strategy to give yourself another shot at the game if converting the 4th down looked hopeless. James 04:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I note that someone has since researched the details and added to the article an account of this odd "please-give-our-opponents-two-points" challenge.  Good show! WHPratt (talk) 12:55, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that this incident has been eliminated. That's unfortunate, (if indeed it's still unique).  In this situation, the defense did not choose to create an intentional safety, but found a way to get one when the play result turned out to be worse. WHPratt (talk) 13:49, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  A new elective safety strategy? 

message: I reverted the changes made by User:24.174.14.12 because IMO neither added anything of value to the article.  Yes, if the blocked-kick "conversion safety" scenario had occurred on a field goal instead of a PAT, it would have been worth two points instead of one, but we make that clear throughout the section and the article.  The confusion surrounding the Texas-TA&M conversion safety is irrelevant; we're just citing it as an example and the user can click through to the link for details. Dpiranha 23:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted the para added by User:206.168.96.120 because it is vague and unsourced.  I recall nothing in my football background about the imaginary line s/he speaks of.  However, his recollection of the rule is worth preserving (see boxed item below), because I agree that "somehow" the old safety vs. touchback distinctions have become obsolete or blurred.  (I was taught many years ago that if a player who, say, intercepts a pass in his end zone made any evident attempt to return the ball, and later was tackled or took a knee before leaving the end zone, it was a safety.)  Did the rule change formally at some point, and if so can someone shed some light on it? We need something more authoritative than what he wrote. Dpiranha (talk) 02:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reversion of recent change

message: Until the AFL-NFL merger, all NFL conversion attempts - kicking, or running, or this "conversion safety" scenario - counted as a single point.
Actually that was the case until well after the merger - merger in 1970, 2-pt conversion adopted in 1994. Gr8white (talk) 08:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Conversions after merger

message: Aren't free kicks termed as such because the kick is not contested at the line of scrimmage? Kickoffs, Safety Kicks, and the uber-obscure Fair catch kick are the other Free Kicks. Behold the NFL Rulebook on the subject:
1 In addition to a kickoff, the other free kick is a kick after a safety (safety kick). A punt may be used (a punt may not be used on a kickoff).
2 On a safety kick, the team scored upon puts ball in play by a punt, dropkick, or placekick without tee. No score can be made on a free kick following a safety, even if a series of penalties places team in position. (A field goal can be scored only on a play from scrimmage or a free kick after a fair catch.) 
That's not quite right either, because it ignores the Fair catch kick (maybe for clarity, but it's pretty clear the very rare Fair catch kick is a free kick).
There are slightly different rules about how the three types of free kicks may be kicked, but the common thread that separates them from "non-free" kicks (punts and field goals from scrimmage) is the lack of a normal scrimmage or down. That is, the opposing team is backed off. 
In my opinion, it's slightly unfortunate that Free Kick redirects to Safety, but given the extremely minor nature of this football terminology, understandable. But if that's the case, the definition of a free kick here ought to be correct. I shall change it.
--rcousine (talk) 00:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Free Kick etymology? 

message: Interesting table, but please sort it by date, or by something! WHPratt (talk) 13:20, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Games in which a team scored only a safety 

message: This statement needs to be clarified: "A safety is the only score that can be awarded based on a judgment call (a penalty)."
Any touchdown is arguably a "judgment call." The same is true of any field goal (did the ball go over the crossbar and between the uprights?). As far as points being awarded by penalty, I believe sideline interference can also result in a touchdown being awarded if the officials believe that the interfering player (or coach) on the sideline prevented what would have otherwise been a touchdown. 66.234.218.146 (talk) 06:23, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: A palpably unfair act can give a score to a team, so it definitely isn't the only score that can result from a judgment call.  The bit about a safety being the only score that can be eliminated by prior results is also incorrect, because a punt touched by the kicking team can nullify a touchdown just as much as it can a safety. 74.222.241.106 (talk) 06:14, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the entire "oddities" section.  Almost nothing in it was true, except the one statement about being able to score without the ball; the article already mentioned this anyways, so it was redundant.  --Jayron32 07:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Only score that can be awarded based on a judgment call? 

message: This article is starting to suffer from example inflation, where everyone wants to add another example.  There's really no reason to have more than one example to illustrate each topic.  For example there are now five examples for "clock time".  And as another example, there are three examples for "field position"... Gr8white (talk) 01:55, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example inflation 

message: Notice this:
The "unintentional" intentional safety
I don't think I understand your use of "intentional".  I was able to get to video of this play, and I was able to see the ball leave the end zone (heading toward the 1 yard line), and then being grabbed by the return man, who knelt down for what he apparently thought was a touchback.  It seems he didn't fully realize where the ball was and the implications of where it was.  (In case the title in the wikipedia article gets changed, this is referring to a game of 1 Jan 2012.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.82 (talk) 17:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please explain this title among the notable safeties 

message: Having seen "After a loose ball", I recall seeing on TV a play where a quarterback tried to pass from his own end zone.  The ball was batted up in the air, and the quarterback, being physically able to reach the ball, had the presence of mind to bat it out of the end zone so that neither a safety nor a TD would be scored; the result was just an incomplete pass.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.82 (talk) 17:22, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  and a non-score situation in the end zone 

message: I am seeing changes of today (Nov. 14) which split the notable safeties (such as Jim Marshall's wrong-way run of 1964) into a new article.  Where is the link to that article from the one I am currently writing about?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.20 (talk) 19:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: They are located in a section of List of safety records, which frankly doesn't make any sense to me. MattSoave (talk) 19:40, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  OK, so where do I now go to view the notable safeties? 

message: For reasons only explained as "overhauling," some interesting material — why a team might choose to intentionally draw a safety — was removed in a 14 November 2012 edit. I recognize that it may have been overly lengthy, but I think it contained some valuable information and that the examples were insightful.
I'm adding it back for now, as the deleted content wasn't transferred along with the Notable Safeties section to the List of safety records article. MattSoave (talk) 20:10, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elective Safeties 

message: Okay, I admit the concept of a conversion safety is new to me, but I think some people are confused about the difference between an offensive and a defensive conversion safety. An offensive conversion safety is what we just saw in the fiesta bowl where Oregon (the offensive team) was kicking the extra point, it was recovered by Kansas State (the defensive team) in the field of play and taken back into their own end zone where the defensive player was downed by the offensive team, thus the offensive team scored an offensive conversion safety.
In contrast, a defensive conversion safety would have been if Kansas State (the defensive team) had managed to run the ball all the way back to almost the other end of the field near the Oregon end zone, had fumbled the ball, Oregon recovered in the field of play, took it back into their own end zone and then was downed, thus the defensive (non-kicking) team would have scored a defensive conversion safety. A highly unlikely series of events, which is why it has never happened in a game. Rreagan007 (talk) 04:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: If it is true that a defensive conversion safety was scored in the 2004 game, then I apologize. But what you are describing does not sound like a 1-point defensive conversion safety, it sounds like a defensive 2 point conversion.  Rreagan007 (talk) 04:54, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

text: I just watched the Youtube video, and the defensive team most definintely did NOT run the ball back 97 yards to the other end zone. It's definitely just an offensive conversion safety and not the never-before-seen defensive conversion safety. I agree with Ravi12346 and the sources that say a defensive conversion safety has never been scored. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:11, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

text: Does the rule book just refer to it as a "safety"? During the Fiesta Bowl, the referee referred to it as a "one-point safety" and held up 1 finger before doing the safety signal. The TV announcers referred to it on air as a "conversion safety". Even if neither of these is the official term, I think including both of the common terms in the article for this unusual scoring situation is appropriate.Rreagan007 (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The rulebook just calls it a "Safety".  It also refers to the conversion as a "Try".  So I suppose a more official term would be a "Try Safety" or "Safety Point After Try". 216.65.144.24 (talk) 21:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Not everything is called by its official name, however. We don't call the kicking team downing a punt 'illegal touching' or an extra point attempt a 'try'. 'Conversion safety' is the common term. However, using the technical or on-field term is a great idea. Toa Nidhiki05 02:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Offensive vs Defensive conversion safety 

message: If I'm not mistaken, a team which returns the ball and performs a drop-kick could theoretically get one point. But I don't know enough about the drop-kick to comment on which levels of football this would be legal. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 18:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: At least in NFL and NCAA rules a drop kick isn't special, just another way to score a field goal or extra point - it is subject to the same restrictions as the place kick, such as the kick having to take place on or behind the LOS. Up until a few decades ago you could still drop-kick from beyond the LOS, but it was still worth three points. Toa Nidhiki05 19:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the question was whether or not the defensive team could score a kick-conversion on an extra point attempt, after having obtained the ball on a turnover.  I'd say, yes, in the era when a drop-kick was legal from anywhere on the field.  (It would be an unusual circumstance, with the player deciding that he couldn't reach the end zone by running and could settle for one point.) Probably not legal under modern rules, though I'm not certain how the rules would treat a defensive player's attempt. WHPratt (talk) 13:32, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, in that case it would be a one-point safety awarded to the defense. A field goal can only be scored by kicking it through the goal posts of the defense, and an extra point, strictly speaking, is a down called the 'Try' that works just like any other down, except it is untimed, touchdowns are worth two points, and field goals/safeties are worth one point. So kicking the ball through your own goal posts on a try would be a safety since the ball was legally kicked backward out of one's own end zone. Toa Nidhiki05 15:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: If a player kicked the ball through his own goal post uprights, it would be a safety: I agree with that.  I think the original question was whether a player who had blocked a field goal or extra point and had run it back towards the opponent's goal could drop-kick it through the opponents' goal posts rather than complete a run to the end zone. WHPratt (talk) 17:48, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The answer would be no. Only the team on offense at the start of the play can drop kick and it must be from behind the line of scrimmage. Decades ago that could have worked, but the NFL eliminated the field drop kick sometime in the 90s. I believe you can still do it in the Canadian Football League, however. Toa Nidhiki05 18:19, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Defensive safety on conversion = only way to get one point 

message: The article is not clear about which team gets the two points. Is it the offensive team that gets only two instead of seven because it was tackled, or the defensive that gets two for tackling?—msh210℠ 22:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: A safety always goes to the defense (unless it is a conversion safety). It happens when the ball becomes dead (ie. the ballcarrier is tackled) in the offense's own end zone (ie. the end zone the offense is moving away from). A touchdown (the seven points you refer to counting the extra point) is scored when the offense advances the ball into the defensive end zone. Toa Nidhiki05 22:59, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I was unclear what "own" meant. Maybe the article should clarify that phrase or link to something that does.—msh210℠ 23:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the article assumes a lot of knowledge of football. A summary table would be nice: Where in the field | who does what | who gets the points | how many points. The parent posts explain some of the confusion to those not immersed in the game.Fotoguzzi (talk) 02:20, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cui bono? 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Reception (American football) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 07:59, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: The one-point safety is known to have happened 12 times in college football. The first time was a point scored by Syracuse in 1971 on a ball-batting penalty by Indiana. It's happened two more recent times in Division I-A (FBS), once in I-AA (FCS), once in Division II, 4 times in Division III (including the most recent occurrence in history in the 2013 Bluffton vs. Franklin game), once in NAIA, and twice in junior colleges in California.
The date of that first game was October 2, 1971, in Bloomington, Indiana. Various descriptions of the play appeared in the next day's Indiana Sunday newspapers but did not use the term "one-point safety" (see "Hungry Crowd", "Feelings Mixed" and "Indiana Blanked"). It appears that within a day or two, the play had been characterized as a one-point safety in a post-game explanation of the ruling, because that's when an AP syndicated football column described it as a one-point safety (see "College Football Notes"): 
:"It was a one-point safety. A what? A one-point safety. Syracuse was trying to kick the extra point after taking a 6-0 lead. The ball was kicked almost straight up in the air and was coming down obviously short of the crossbar when an Indiana player batted the ball down in the end zone and Syracuse recovered. Since an Indiana player batted the ball illegally, the ruling was that the try was successful."
Relevant ARs from the 2016 NCAA rulebook include:
:Rule 9 Section 4 Article 1 "Batting a Loose Ball"
:Approved Ruling AR 9-4-1-II:
:"Team A attempts a field goal from Team B’s 30-yard line. A Team B player in the end zone leaps above the crossbar and bats the ball in flight. The ball goes into the end zone and is recovered by Team B. RULING: Foul for batting the ball in the end zone. The result of the play is a touchback. Safety if penalty is accepted."
:Approved Ruling AR 9-4-1-V:
:"Team A attempts a place kick on the try. A Team B player in the end zone leaps above the crossbar and bats the ball in flight. The ball goes into the end zone and is recovered by Team A. RULING: Foul for batting the ball in the end zone. Team A may decline the penalty and scores two points." (i.e., a two-point touchdown on the try)
Did AR 9-4-1-II and AR 9-4-1-V exist in 1971? Unless there were different rules in 1971 (there were; see below), it seems that the referees either 
(1) incorrectly called a safety thinking that an Indiana player, not a Syracuse player, had fallen on the batted ball, or 
(2) awarded a safety believing that the ball, having been batted by Indiana, had gone out of the end zone before it was next touched (similar to the pre-2015 NFL rule), or
(3) egregiously awarded one point instead of two for the try touchdown (as the Sunday Bedford Daily Times news article suggests).
It is obvious that the characterization of any scoring play must correspond to the rulebook's point values awarded by the referees. In this case the score awarded was one point to Syracuse. The point could not be attributed to a successful try, because the try attempt by Syracuse was certainly not successful, either physically or by rule.
The point could also not be attributed to a try touchdown because of the fact that only one point was awarded, not two points. (Awarding one point for a score that is supposed to be two points by rule would be an egregious made-up thing and not simply a rule interpretation.) The only other plausible ruling relevant to the actual try attempt witnessed on the field carried a value of one point, matching the official award of one point to Syracuse. Of course, that was the one-point safety.
Once the referee whistles the game over, the score of the game cannot be changed. Calls and non-calls can't be retroactively fixed. A not good try remains a not good try, and a one-point try touchdown remains an imaginary thing.
The referees' award of one point to Syracuse stood at the final gun, attributed to the only appropriate thing, a one-point safety, even if the application of the rule to what happened on the field might have been a bit incorrect. As a comparison, in 1988 the first defensive two-point try touchdown (two-point conversion) scored in a college game went into the record book despite that it should have been blown dead as a grounded fumble recovery. It stood as a two-pointer at the end of that game, so that is what it remains to this day.
The above is construed upon the 2016 NCAA football rules. Upon review of the rules in effect in 1970, it appears that the officials made a correct ruling exactly in accord with the rules of the time. The relevant rules are as follows.
1970 NCAA Official Football Rules
Rule 9 Section 4 "Batting and Kicking"
:9.4.1 "Batting a Free Ball" (page 66)
:
::"... any player may block or partially block a scrimmage kick in the field of play or end zone, but no player shall bat any other free ball forward in the field of play or in any direction if it is in an end zone.
::
::Penalty -- Offended team's ball at spot of foul."
:
Rule 8 Section 5 "Safety and Touchback"
:
:8.5.3 "Initial Impetus" (page 59)
:
::Approved Ruling 39.
::
::"If a scrimmage kick fails to cross the neutral zone, or crosses the neutral zone and is first touched by Team B, or is untouched and then rebounds into the end zone where it is recovered by Team A, it is a safety."
:
:8.5.4 "Resulting From Foul" (page 59)
:
::"If the penalty for a foul committed when the ball is free leaves the ball behind a goal line, it is a safety if behind the offender's goal line;"
:
Rule 10 Section 2 "Enforcement Procedures"
:10.2.1 "Spots" (page 69)
::
::"When no enforcement spot is specified in a penalty, the enforcement spot shall be: ...
::
::b. If the ball was free:
::
:::1. From ... a scrimmage kick which did not cross the neutral zone or which had crossed that zone and had touched a Team-B player, the ball shall be awarded to the offended team at the spot of the foul (no distance penalty)."
1970 NCAA Official Football Rule Interpretations
The Try (pages 59--60)
:(2) "Safety on the Try"
:
:"A Safety on the Try has always been possible and can be scored if there is a foul by B in his end zone during a free ball. The ball becomes dead when it is evident that the kick cannot score a goal (4-1-3-d). ..."
:
:"Examples of fouls during a Try: ...
:
::(c) A's legal kick, untouched and in the air, has crossed the neutral zone when a foul occurs. RULING: ... If foul by B and kick is ... unsuccessful and spot of foul is in ... end zone, score one point for safety."
"Batting and Kicking" (page 70)
:"(1) Batting a Free Ball"
:
:"The following free balls may not be batted forward while between the goal lines, or batted in any direction while in either end zone: ...
:
::(c) A kick, except when blocking or partially blocking it. "Block" as used in 9-4-1 means initial blocking or partially blocking behind the line or in the immediate vicinity of the neutral zone."
:
Jeff in CA (talk) 19:59, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  An essay on the first known occurrence of the one-point safety 

message: ?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paco2718 (talk • contribs) 18:35, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is it called a "safety"? 

message: The article states: "scoring play that results in two points being awarded to the scoring team", but does not define who the scoring team is. 2600:4040:54B0:5C00:8865:C4E3:CDE7:6FD4 (talk) 15:30, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article not clear who receives the points