Jammer Scoring Theory

[Rego_Derby]

While at a tourney last weekend I was trying to get some clarity on what "No pass, no penalty" means. It was described to me as the communication given by or to the jam ref for their jammer when the jammer is blocked out of bounds and the blocker goes out as well followed by the jammer taking advantage of the opportunity to reestablish in bounds immediately without having to cycle behind the blocker. This constitutes a no pass and thus no penalty and also no point is awarded. What is the theory behind why it should work that way? If a jammer gets through the pack why should they be denied a point or points because blockers can't control themselves? Doesn't this seem open to abuse? Am I understanding the situation correctly?

[Major Wood]

They aren't denied points. They can make the decision to just continue on and not get that point, or drop back and re-attempt to legally pass.
I don't recall specifically what the reasons were for making it the way it is, but the alternatives would be to either:

• earn the point if the jammer passes while both are out of bounds
• jammer only gets one attempt to score on any opposing blocker

The first provides a disincentive for blockers to go for big blocks anywhere near the line, leading to (likely) less exciting gameplay.
The latter is something that used to be the case, and was called "one shot scoring". It was overwhelmingly voted out. That was before my time, but I suspect the reasoning was that it made things much harder for jammers, and was arguably more difficult to keep track of as a jammer referee.

In any case, the way things are now is less punitive and allows jammers to make a choice based on what they think will give them better results. Maybe it's dropping back to get that one blocker point. Maybe it's moving forward to start a new scoring pass and potentially another 4 points.