Question for you fine, knowledgeable, football folks out there

[Kopy 489]

A non football fan/watcher asked me a question last night. I had never even thought about it before. But I couldn't come up with an actual answer.

 

Why is intentional grounding a penalty. But spiking the ball is just an incomplete pass? The QB is in the pocket on both plays. And neither throw is an attempt at an actual eligible player.

[Vikings4ever 496]

http://www.nfl.com/rulebook/intentionalgrounding

Intentional grounding will be called when a passer, facing an imminent loss of yardage due to pressure from the defense, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion.

[kutulu 1,542]

I think the reasoning is spiking the ball is the actual called play (not counting Dan Marino fake spike) and an acceptable way to stop the clock without using a time out where intentionally grounding is a last ditch effort to avoid a negative play which can also hurt the other team by avoiding a sack, pick ect. Intentionally grounding is probably not the best name though.

[weepaws 2,452]

http://www.nfl.com/rulebook/intentionalgrounding

Winner.

[tanatastic 2,061]

They don’t want the qb cheesing his way out of bad situations with a pass to nowhere. A spike is done at the start so no implied chance of a positive outcome.