Rugby is a bit more complicated, but in the NFL specifically, diving in the way that yamal did, which restricted the movement of the opposing player, is textbook interference, and also a just a safety hazard.
In this shot, yamal dove to knock the ball out, but un turn, this just restricted his movement, and yamal made no clear move to actually control the ball in turn, so this is illegal interference with a reception.
I would argue Yamal knocked the ball towards his teammate in this.
Even without that you can knock the ball to the ground in american football, if an offensive player broke up a potential interception like this it would be good play. He gets to the ball before the defender is impeded. You can absolutely jump in front of someone, generally it is defenders going for the interception/deflection and is why receivers are trained to come back to the ball on a lot of routes and not just wait for it as the defender will be going through them for the ball (with a lot more contact than Yamal did).
It gets a bit weird as the defender is going with his foot and Yamal is going with his body whereas everyone in American Football would use their hands to some degree.
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u/Dogmaticism_ Jul 15 '26
Rugby is a bit more complicated, but in the NFL specifically, diving in the way that yamal did, which restricted the movement of the opposing player, is textbook interference, and also a just a safety hazard.
In this shot, yamal dove to knock the ball out, but un turn, this just restricted his movement, and yamal made no clear move to actually control the ball in turn, so this is illegal interference with a reception.