Passing
In American football, the offense can throw the ball forward once on a play from behind the line of scrimmage. The forward pass is a distinguishing feature of American and Canadian football as it is strictly forbidden in rugby.
The ball can be thrown sideways or backwards without restriction in both games. In American football this is known as a lateral and is much less common than in rugby union.
In both codes, if the ball is caught by an opposition player this results in an interception and possession changes hands.
Read more about this topic: Comparison Of American Football And Rugby Union
Famous quotes containing the word passing:
“This melancholy London—I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)
“The statue is then beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out of criticism, and can no longer be defined by compass and measuring-wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it, and to say what it is in the act of doing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)