Russell Yurk forward pass Monday Night Football
Credit: ESPN
The NFL rulebook may just be the most complicated in all of sports. It’s one of the reasons why rules analysts like ESPN’s Russell Yurk have become commonplace on telecasts. They are there to explain the seemingly unexplainable to football fans watching around the country.
But if there’s one thing that any person watching football should be able to agree on, it’s the forward pass. After all, it’s the one thing that revolutionized American football and set it apart from other sports around the globe.
One of the many bad plays in Carson Wentz and the Minnesota Vikings’ diabolical performance happened in the first quarter, when the quarterback threw a lateral that fell to the turf and the Bills recovered it.
After a replay review, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman brought in Yurk to explain what seems to be an elementary part of American football. Forward passes have to go forward to be forward.
“A pass is backward if it doesn’t go forward… It has to go forward to be forward.” – ESPN rules analyst Russell Yurk https://t.co/kjHmxFEIJF
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 10, 2026
“A pass is backward if it doesn’t go forward. So a pure lateral that goes purely to the side is a backward pass by rule. It has to go forward to be forward,” Yurk said.
Thanks, Russell Yurk!
We can laugh and have some fun thinking about a rules analyst explaining the mystery of the forward pass. But we’ve already seen what should be the simplest rule in football become a complete mess this season.
In Week 1, Chase Young of the New Orleans Saints appeared to sack Jared Goff of the Detroit Lions, forcing a fumble that was returned for a touchdown. But the play was overturned and ruled an incomplete pass because of Goff’s “intent” to throw a forward pass. Fans had never seen a ruling like that before, and they haven’t seen it applied since.
So let that serve as a cautionary tale to NFL fans everywhere that sometimes even the simplest of plays need an extra dose of assurance that what you’ve assumed to be true for decades, in fact, still is.