From the playing rules, player attempting to catch a punt must be given the opportunity to do so. A player on the kicking team who tackles, bumps or otherwise interferes with the returner before the ball is caught will be penalized. The officials will either call Fair Catch Interference (FCI), or Interference with the Opportunity to Catch (IOC). Officially, there is only one penalty: FCI, but sometimes they’ll use the language suggesting IOC. GSIS has a penalty called IOC to provide a more informative play by play, but recording this as an FCI is allowable. I’d suggest recording it as FCI or IOC depending on how it was called by the officials. FCI/IOC is enforced at the spot of the foul for 15 yards, and nullifies everything that follows the penalty.

If the returner signaled for a fair catch, and is tackled or otherwise interfered with before making the catch, the Guide for Statisticians is clear on what to do:

"Do not charge a punt return to a player who:

      1)       signals for, and makes a fair catch; or
2)       signals for a fair catch, but is fouled before having the opportunity to make the catch."

The Guide says nothing about what to do if the player does NOT signal for a fair catch. This penalty occurred three times this weekend, and in all three cases the player did not signal for a fair catch. The Cincinnati stats crew scored the play one way, the St. Louis and Philadelphia stats crews scored it a different way. Seeking some clarification, I contacted Elias.

Elias’s ruling:
If a player does NOT signal for a fair catch, and is interfered with, charge a downed punt to the punter. NO kick return, kick return yards, or fair catch to the returner.

[In GSIS, the downed punt is a team statistic, and is assigned to the returning team, not the punter.]

There is no way to enter this play in GSIS to come up with a kick downed statistic and penalty yards. We’ll have to modify the system next season to comply with this ruling. For the remainder of the 2002 season, you’ll have to use the manual statistics override to assign the proper statistics on this play. Here’s an example entry:

http://www.nflgsis.com/gsis/training/SearchPlay/Results.aspx?GameKey=5010&Play_ID=2571

Regardless whether or not the returner caught, muffed, missed the ball entirely, etc., the play entry for the IOC/FCI penalty when the player did not signal for a fair catch should follow this general pattern:

PL        Play from Scrimmage
PU        Punt
PN        Penalty
<anything else: KM, KD, KR, etc.)
END     End of Play

This will give a fair catch to either the player listed in the event following the penalty, or the team if there is no such player, a punt, and penalty yards. You will then need to manually remove the fair catch statistic and add a team Punt Downed (No Return) statistic to the return team.

In the situation where the player signals for a Fair Catch, the play entry screen should always look like:

http://www.nflgsis.com/gsis/training/searchplay/results.aspx?Play_ID=2479

PL        Play from Scrimmage
PU        Punt
FC        Fair Catch
PN        Penalty
END     End of Play

No manual statistics are required when the player signals for a fair catch.