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The Dallas Cowboys lost in Washington on Sunday. There are a lot of reasons why Dallas lost, and what happened on the final offensive possession is big among them. Dallas got Brett Maher in position to tie the game, but right before he gave it his best shot a penalty was called against L.P. Ladouceur.
Personally I was always under the impression that it was illegal to call a penalty against Ladouceur since he was around when the game of football was invented and what not, but apparently he’s not immune to infractions.
Ladouceur was called for a snap infraction when Dallas lined up to kick a field goal and that turned Maher’s 47-yard attempt (he’d previously connected from that range in the game) into a 52-yard one. He missed and you know the rest.
“What’s a snap infraction?” -almost everyone
Living rooms across the world were filled with the exact same comment after this penalty was called. “Snap infraction? Is that a thing? I’ve never heard that before.”
A snap infraction is indeed a real thing and it’s so real that the NFL released a video to explain how they got it right. The thing about their video is, it basically didn’t explain anything.
“The illegal ball movement by the center in #DALvsWAS causes the defense to come across the neutral zone and contact a lineman.” -AL pic.twitter.com/Cv8Ugwb99p
— NFL Officiating (@NFLOfficiating) October 21, 2018
You can see in the video that Ladouceur does move the ball, but it looks like he’s simply getting ready to snap it. This happens with centers all the time when they pick up the ball to grip or whatever, it seems awfully picky to call it especially in such a tight moment of a game.
Ultimately the snap infraction wasn’t the sole reason why the Cowboys lost in Washington, but at least now we’re all the more educated on why the infraction was called.
Right? Anyone? Bueller?