Rules
To be considered a sack the quarterback must intend to throw a forward pass. If the play is designed for the quarterback to rush (run) the ball, any loss is subtracted from the quarterback's rushing total. (and the play is ruled a Tackle-for-loss as opposed to a sack) If the quarterback's intent is not obvious, statisticians use certain criteria, such as the offensive line blocking scheme, to decide. Unique situations where a loss reduces a quarterback's rushing total (not a sack) are "kneel downs" (used to run time off the game clock).
A player will receive credit for half of a sack when multiple players contribute to the sacking of a quarterback, even if more than two players contributed.
Read more about this topic: Quarterback Sack
Famous quotes containing the word rules:
“One might get the impression that I recommend a new methodology which replaces induction by counterinduction and uses a multiplicity of theories, metaphysical views, fairy tales, instead of the customary pair theory/observation. This impression would certainly be mistaken. My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is rather to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.”
—Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994)
“No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)
“... cooking is just like religion. Rules don’t no more make a cook than sermons make a saint.”
—Anonymous, U.S. cook. As quoted in I Dream a World, by Leah Chase, who was quoted in turn by Brian Lanker (1989)