rule for the offensive player that touched it causes it to be a live ball. I’m not whining about the call. That’s the way the ball bounces.

But the question I have is why isn’t that rule potentially different when the player doesn’t line up to punt the ball and lines up to run a normal play like they did. The defender can’t necessarily know the play turned into a punt and therefore doesn’t know the ball is live.

There are other rules that require the offense to be restricted depending on what they are running. For example the offensive line can’t go more than 3 yards downfield if it is a pass play and presumably that is to help the defense understand better what play is being run.

Anyway just thought you could remove the live ball situation when teams do the reverse fake punt, unless there is a punt returner there that is actually trying to field the ball.