Who's eligible?

primary responsibility of the wing officials is to verify which players on their respective sides of the field are eligible to receive a forward pass. Keep in mind that those pre-snap determinations of the eligible v the ineligible are significant only if there is a legal forward pass thrown by Team A.

In the Part XIII caseplay, the down and distance of 3rd and one from B’s 30 yard line indicates a high probability of a running play; the unbalanced formation would point to that play's going to the left side of the formation, where Team A may have a manpower advantage.

Now let’s leave the caseplay the same but change the formation to illustrate a slightly different situation. As shown in Figure 2, Team A has now chosen to retain an eligible receiver on both ends of the line.

LJ                     14   73   76   61   55   60   83                                    HL

Continued...