Can NFL Defenders Hit the Long Snapper?

Aug 24

2 min read

Updated: 5 hours ago

NFL defenders may make legal contact with a long snapper. The rules protect his starting alignment and vulnerable posture; they do not make every touch a foul.

Part of Football 101. Explore the guide to choose your next topic.

Yes. NFL defenders can make legal contact with a long snapper, but they cannot simply line up head-up and blast him at the snap.

Separate what the defender was allowed to do before the snap from how he contacted the snapper afterward.

The alignment restriction

When the offense presents the qualifying kick formation, a defender within one yard of the line must keep his entire body outside the snapper’s shoulder pad frame at the snap. The penalty for violating that formation restriction is five yards.

Field goal and try formations also limit defensive overloads. Those details and the listed exceptions for nonstandard formations, shifts and motion belong in the long snapper alignment guide. They do not replace player safety rules after the snap.

The contact restriction

A player attempting a scrimmage kick snap is defenseless until he has had a reasonable opportunity to protect himself or moves downfield. During that protected posture, defenders must avoid the prohibited forcible head or neck contact, lowered helmet contact and launching described in Rule 12.

A defender starting from a legal gap can use otherwise legal hands and body contact. The crew judges the target, method and timing of the contact rather than declaring a foul simply because the snapper was involved.

There is no universal NFL rule requiring exactly one second of untouched recovery time.

What a replay should show

Imagine a rusher aligned outside the protected frame who attacks the gap with legal hand contact as the snapper begins to protect. That can be legal. Change the action to a prohibited forcible blow to the vulnerable snapper’s head and the alignment being legal does not rescue the hit.

Defenders also cannot propel teammates into the offensive formation to block a kick. That is its own restriction, not a loophole around the snapper.

Penalty consequences

The formation foul and a personal foul carry different penalties. Prohibited contact against a defenseless player brings fifteen yards and an automatic first down, subject to the rules for the particular down. A try still uses its own penalty administration.

Watch the rusher’s starting position first, then the contact. Those two checkpoints explain why a forceful looking legal rush and a smaller prohibited high hit can receive different rulings.