The NFL can't tell time

[longhair75]

Once again, we are dealing with the entire Sunday evening TV schedule at the mercy of a long running NFL game.

It baffles me why a game that is played in four fifteen minute quaters takes somewhere between three and four hours to play. I guess those who are fans of this mind numbing game are happy enough, but I would much rather watch Sixty Minutes on time and then on to the regularly scheduled programming.

[twickster]

Esp. since the regularly scheduled programming includes The Amazing Race. :(

[gonzomax]

Back many years ago football games were fast. There were no commercial timeouts. The advertisers slowly snuck in more and more commercials. Now they consume as much time as the play.

[gonzomax]

The average pro game takes 3 hrs and 7 minutes. add a bit for night games where they slip in a few more commercials.

[longhair75]

The last six minutes of this game took 27 minutes. Now they are into a fifteen minute over time period. At the pace they are moving, this means Sixty minutes Might be on about eight PM, and the Amazing Race at nine. This puts Cold Case at about midnight.

[Frank]

I tend to agree with gonzomax on this one. Don't blame the NFL; blame the TV networks. The NFL has actually made rule changes to try to keep the games shorter.

Football games, along with baseball and to some extent basketball, not only for the poor slobs sitting in the stadium but for those of us following along at home, are dragging on entirely too long. It's not suspenseful, it's just boring. I'm getting to the point where I don't want to watch them; I've got other things to do.

I'm happy to spend 2 1/2 to 3 hours watching a sports game. When they start running to 4 hours, I'm going to turn it off and deal with other things in my life. I've got books to read, cleaning to do, supper to fix, etc., etc., etc.

[longhair75]

I have to admit I am not a sports fan. Any given five minutes of this game looks exactly like any other given five minutes. I do not get the appeal.

[longhair75]

The NFL has actually made rule changes to try to keep the games shorter. If this is actually the case, why are there so many times while the game is on where everyone is standing around and the clock is not running

[longhair75]

The clock is not running right now, but some guy is being followed by cameras while hugging football players

[longhair75]

So, the game is finally over. I missed the end. Thee hours and forty minutes. for a one hour game

[Drain Bead]

If this is actually the case, why are there so many times while the game is on where everyone is standing around and the clock is not running

Is this a rhetorical question?

[RickJay]

I tend to agree with gonzomax on this one. Don't blame the NFL; blame the TV networks. The NFL has actually made rule changes to try to keep the games shorter.
Not to point out the obvious, but the TV networks don't own the NFL. The NFL has the option to sell fewer commercial spots and charge more per spot. They choose not to. The length of the games (by far the longest games played by a major team league sport I can think of) is the doing of the people who run the games.

[longhair75]

Is this a rhetorical question?

No, my friend, it is not. Why does there have to be such long stretches of game time with the clock not running? Why do the end of some plays stop the clock and others not? If comercials are the reason the game runs long, why don't they have commercials while everyone is standing around anyway?

[ToeJam]

There are Official Time outs (3 per half per team), Injury Time outs, Challenges (used instead of a Time Out, but if successful give you back a Time Out), Official Booth review of plays, and also measuring of downs.

All these are moments where people have to stand around and wait because something else is going on in the game besides the actual game itself.
They are all reasons for why the game has to stop/pause- Commercial breaks are usually taken during these pauses, but there are still other breaks as well.

[garygnu]

...but there are still other breaks as well.
Which is the problem. There are people wearing giant, neon-orange mittens on the sidelines that signal if the network has gone to commercial. If these orange mitts suddenly went missing the world would be a better place. (Thank Og for DVR)

[ToeJam]

Why do the end of some plays stop the clock and others not?
-Usually the clock continues if a completed play ends in bounds (person runs with the ball and is tackled in bounds, player catches the ball and is tackled in bounds, or quarterback is sacked). These plays all will keep the clock running.

However, incomplete plays (where the pass is ruled incomplete) will stop the play, and also so will any play where the player is able to run out of bounds. This becomes part of the strategy- if you have less than 10-12 mins in a quarter to play, and you're down several scores- you do NOT want to run the ball, instead you want to focus on trying to score as quickly as possible. This means trying to execute passing plays, and having the receivers run out of bounds once they are about to go down. There is also a play clock- I believe it's around 30 seconds or so- a play must take place during this amount of time. So if you execute a running play and run out of bounds, you've stopped the clock AND given your players a small time to rest, take a break, make substitutions- so that's another reason to try to focus on plays that will stop the clock.
Because if you're sacked or you do a running play- then you'll still have the 30 second play clock, but it will be running simultaneous to the ACTUAL play clock which will also be running at the same time.

The opposite strategy can also be used- if you are AHEAD in the game, you don't WANT the other team to have the ball and time to score, so you want to focus on running plays and plays that will wind the clock DOWN as much as possible. You want to eat up time by executing all of your plays after using up as much of the play clock as you can to eat away at the in-game time, AND you also can try to execute play after play after play w/o time outs or breaks in order to keep the other team's defense in, and wear them down or force the opposing team to burn a time out just to give their players a break or to save time on the clock for themselves.

Time Management and the usage of time and the eating up of time is an inherent part of the strategy of the game. If you're in the red zone (closer than the 10 yard line), and there's only 20 seconds left on the clock, you're forced to make a decision- do you focus on throwing the ball into the end zone to score- so that if you miss the throw, you will still have time left to make another attempt, or do you try to focus on running the ball in, knowing that if your runner is sacked before he scores, the play clock will wind down until the game ends. It's a part of the coaches strategy and his assessment of his players at that point in the game to determine what plays he should call thus, and adds another layer of depth and strategy to the game.

[Oakminster]

Tangentially relevant:

The Heidi Bowl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game)

[Frank]

Not to point out the obvious, but the TV networks don't own the NFL.
Effectively, they do. Where would the NFL be without TV money?

I'm also mildly surprised to hear that it is the NFL that sells the commercials and not the networks. It's news to me; the league gets paid by the networks and gets the commercial money too? Does the NFL also sell the ads in the sports section of my newspaper?

[longhair75]

Friend Ro0sh
Time Management and the usage of time and the eating up of time is an inherent part of the strategy of the game. If you're in the red zone (closer than the 10 yard line), and there's only 20 seconds left on the clock, you're forced to make a decision- do you focus on throwing the ball into the end zone to score- so that if you miss the throw, you will still have time left to make another attempt, or do you try to focus on running the ball in, knowing that if your runner is sacked before he scores, the play clock will wind down until the game ends. It's a part of the coaches strategy and his assessment of his players at that point in the game to determine what plays he should call thus, and adds another layer of depth and strategy to the game.

None of this explains to those of us who do not care about the minutia of the rules of a game that we do not care about why a game with a one hour time limit needs to take four hours to play.

[PatriotGrrrl]

For the same reason it takes all week (5x24 hours) for people to work a 40 hour work week.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

Unless you try to understand, you won't.

Nothing will make you enjoy football, but there really isn't anything that should keep you from understanding what is going on.

[RickJay]

Effectively, they do. Where would the NFL be without TV money?

I'm also mildly surprised to hear that it is the NFL that sells the commercials and not the networks. It's news to me; the league gets paid by the networks and gets the commercial money too? Does the NFL also sell the ads in the sports section of my newspaper?
The networks can't force the NFL to hold commercial timeouts. That's a negotiated part of the deal; the NFL agrees to have such timeouts, and that increases the price they can charge for rights.

Like it or not it's the NFL's call.

[Frank]

The networks can't force the NFL to hold commercial timeouts. That's a negotiated part of the deal; the NFL agrees to have such timeouts, and that increases the price they can charge for rights.

Like it or not it's the NFL's call.
All right, I see your point now. I think we're simply arriving at different destinations using the same directions. I think the NFL has sold its soul to TV.

[Ravenman]

I guess those who are fans of this mind numbing game are happy enough, but I would much rather watch Sixty Minutes on time and then on to the regularly scheduled programming.Why does it take Sixty Minutes to watch Forty-five Minutes of news programming?

Once you figure that one out, then you will have your answer, grasshopper.

[Bearflag70]

I think it was Greg Easterbook who suggested a time saving measure of eliminating the 1 point PAT kick (over 95% success rate). A TD scores 7 unless the scoring team opts to deduct 1 point and attempt the 2 point try.

Reading this thread, I suppose you could keep the clock running on out-of-bounds plays until the final 2 minutes.

[mhendo]

Reading this thread, I suppose you could keep the clock running on out-of-bounds plays until the final 2 minutes.What you could also do is remove the completely arbitrary and ridiculous distinction between the final 2 minutes of each half, and the rest of the game. The two-minute warning is the biggest abomination and abortion of a "rule" ever incorporated into a sporting contest. It serves literally no purpose except to cram more advertising into the coverage.

[Erdosain]

The real question is why CBS insists on airing 60 Minutes at 7 Eastern when it knows damn well that the game will always go over. My theory? They hate old people.

[ToeJam]

No, my friend, it is not. Why does there have to be such long stretches of game time with the clock not running? Why do the end of some plays stop the clock and others not? If comercials are the reason the game runs long, why don't they have commercials while everyone is standing around anyway?
Friend Ro0sh

None of this explains to those of us who do not care about the minutia of the rules of a game that we do not care about why a game with a one hour time limit needs to take four hours to play.

As commercials aren't the only reason that the game will run long- a high school or college football game that's not televised will also take longer than an hour just due to the game itself. But if you weren't looking for an actual answer, then I suppose you WERE asking a rhetorical question and not just asking for more information.

:smack:

[Really Not All That Bright]

I have to admit I am not a sports fan. Any given five minutes of this game looks exactly like any other given five minutes. I do not get the appeal.
I am not entirely unsympathetic to your position; it doesn't make a damn bit of sense that a nominally 60-minute football game takes more than 90 minutes to play, and things are even worse in college football.

However, I have to ask: which bits of 60 Minutes look different from any of the other bits? The ending credits, perhaps?

[Enright3]

I think it was Greg Easterbook who suggested a time saving measure of eliminating the 1 point PAT kick (over 95% success rate). A TD scores 7 unless the scoring team opts to deduct 1 point and attempt the 2 point try.

Reading this thread, I suppose you could keep the clock running on out-of-bounds plays until the final 2 minutes.

Wow. I think that's an awesome idea! PATs are un-timed downs, so they really do nothing but add to the length of time the game is on without the benefit off burning actual game time.

[Enright3]

The real question is why CBS insists on airing 60 Minutes at 7 Eastern when it knows damn well that the game will always go over. My theory? They hate old people.

Ugh! I hate playing Television Roulette with my DVR! I go to watch Cold Case, and I'm stuck watching 45 minutes of The Amazing Race.

I guess I just need to record the news for an hour at the end of programming on Sunday because of games running long.

[Blaster Master]

I think it was Greg Easterbook who suggested a time saving measure of eliminating the 1 point PAT kick (over 95% success rate). A TD scores 7 unless the scoring team opts to deduct 1 point and attempt the 2 point try.

Special teams are just as much a part of the game as the offense or defense and not making them perform takes out a whole dimension of the game. Sometimes PATs miss and, even moreso, sometimes they miss in ways that have a very serious impact on the game. You miss that PAT and are not up 20-17 instead of 21-17, so now your opponent needs to only make a field goal to tie you. You lose that whole aspect of the game, and kickers lose almost half of their job because this will cut out maybe 5 minutes in a game unless it's really high scoring. It's just not worth it.

And you'll see even fewer 2 point tries now because part of the equation is that yes a PAT is a high chance, but it's not guaranteed. Hell, when it's an important PAT you'll actually see the defense put in a serious amount of effort to attempt to block it rather than the half-assed attempt you might see in the middle of the second quarter. Oh, and now there's no chance for a fake or anything like that either. So even less worth it.

If PATs are really eating up a lot of time, just make them timed plays, with clock stoppage before and after, and still happen if at the end of a quarter.

Reading this thread, I suppose you could keep the clock running on out-of-bounds plays until the final 2 minutes.

Except that in a lot of games, the clock matter much sooner than just the last 2 minutes. If you're down by two scores, you might start trying to conserve the clock at 6-8 minutes. Besides, as someone else mentioned up thread, one of the major strategic points of the game is clock management. If it becomes a complete non-issue until the last 2 minutes, that's one more dimension of the game that you take away. You won't see a lot less difference between a team that eats up the clock on a 12 play scoring drive and another team that keeps having stalled drives with lots of incomplete passes.


If they really want to speed up the game without impacting the quality, there's plenty of other ways to do it. For instance, just dropping a couple seconds from the play clock. Right now it's 40/25, they could easily change it to something like 35/25 or 35/20 and it would speed up the game quite a bit. They could potentially add rules to reduce substitutions (eg, only change line-up twice for each set of downs instead of every down) which is a large part of what often pushes teams right to the edge of the play clock.

Another annoying thing is that they do commercial breaks immediately before and immediately after a kick-off; pick one of those breaks and get rid of it, they can add some extra commercials in at other times to make up for it, but there's no need for a 2-3 minute break, 15s of play, then another 2-3 minute break. And while I'm on ads, they could easily shorten a lot of the commercial breaks without losing revenue. Some slow parts of the game could easily allow for the game area to be shrunk down and have some kinds of banner adds or whatever. They could do that when they're reviewing a play, when the officials are discussing stuff, and occassionally during longer uneventful stretches. Hell, it might even give the commentators a chances to shut up so they're not stuck rambling as long and end up saying something dumb.

Also, do something about the time wasted with officiating. I appreciate that they want to get things right, but there doesn't need to be a conference as often as there is. Usually the one with the best view of the penalty or the call is the one who should be trusted, so I don't know what someone across the field really needs to say unless he definitely saw something the other guy may not have. The league could easily have some kind of quota for those little meetings and give some kind of incentive to the refs for keeping them below a certain length of time. I've definitely seen some of those take in excess of 5 minutes, and so it only takes a few of them to add a noticeable amount of time to the game.

Between all of that, they could probably easily cut out 20+ minutes on average.

[magnusblitz]

Another annoying thing is that they do commercial breaks immediately before and immediately after a kick-off;

This is my biggest annoyance with the ads. Sometimes it'll happen during punts too, which is even more ridiculous. Its kill any momentum in a game and there's no reason for it at all other than advertising (unlike say, other stoppages that are game-related, like the 2 minute warning).

Interestingly enough, during the Ravens-Bengals game today, near the end of the game, they kept trying to cut away to a commercial, would get one in, and then need to switch back to the game because play had resumed. Seems they weren't going to let a little commercial time interrupt them too much.

[mhendo]

This is my biggest annoyance with the ads. Sometimes it'll happen during punts too, which is even more ridiculous. Its kill any momentum in a game and there's no reason for it at all other than advertising (unlike say, other stoppages that are game-related, like the 2 minute warning).The two-minute warning is "game-related" in the sense that it is part of the rules, but it serves no logical purpose other than adding another stoppage to a sport that already has far too many. Functionally, it's no different from a simple ad stoppage.

Are football fans and players so retarded that they actually need a stoppage in play, with an ad break, to tell them that there's two minutes left on the game clock? Not sure about you, but i have no trouble reading the little clock in the top corner of my TV screen to see how long there is to go.

[Crawlspace]

Wow. I think that's an awesome idea! PATs are un-timed downs, so they really do nothing but add to the length of time the game is on without the benefit off burning actual game time.You can say this about most of football stoppages. Why should the clock stop because some guy got 1/4" out of bounds?

[asterion]

The two-minute warning is "game-related" in the sense that it is part of the rules, but it serves no logical purpose other than adding another stoppage to a sport that already has far too many. Functionally, it's no different from a simple ad stoppage.

Are football fans and players so retarded that they actually need a stoppage in play, with an ad break, to tell them that there's two minutes left on the game clock? Not sure about you, but i have no trouble reading the little clock in the top corner of my TV screen to see how long there is to go.
Considering that the origin of the two-minute warning was to make sure everyone knew how much time was left before the scoreboard clock was the official clock, it wasn't stupid. And I like the time management aspects of the two-minute warning.

Other notes: Outside of the two-minute timing rules, running out of bounds does not stop the clock for more than a few seconds. Getting rid of the PAT kick was stupid when the XFL did it and it would stupid for the NFL to do it in the other direction. I agree that they should cut out some of the commercials around kickoffs and punts.

Face it, football is a game that simply takes more than one hour to play. Even when I was going to high school games, those still took at least two hours, and that was with 12-minute quarters. I say that it is stupid that soccer takes more than 90 minutes to play because of halftime and it's stupid the way the clock is never stopped, resulting in an unknown amount of "extra" time. How about that it takes 40 minutes to play 2 minutes of basketball with all the timeouts and intentional fouling?

If you want to watch your Sunday night TV on time, move to the Mountain zone. A late football game starts at 2:15 and is over by 6:00, when 60 Minutes starts, and then the rest of primetime starts at 7:00. Other bonuses: Sunday Night and Monday Night football start at 6:30, even the latest baseball playoff game starts no later than 7:30, and you can watch an entire game of Monday Night Football and then catch Letterman at 10:30.

[Freddy the Pig]

Here's the better question: Why do the networks schedule a full night of prime-time programming after a football game that they know will almost never end until 7:30?

It's no use arguing whether football games "should" take 3+ hours or not. The fact is, they do, they have for the last fifty years, and they aren't going to change. The second game starts at 4:15 and is expected to run until 7:30. So what's the point of scheduling Sixty Minutes for 7:00 and making an announcement every fucking week that "if you're expecting to see Sixty Minutes, it's going to be late this week"? Duh. It's going to be late every week between September and January. Schedule it at 7:30, drop half an hour of prime-time programming, and most of the time your schedule can remain in place.

[kenobi 65]

Here's the better question: Why do the networks schedule a full night of prime-time programming after a football game that they know will almost never end until 7:30?

It's no use arguing whether football games "should" take 3+ hours or not. The fact is, they do, they have for the last fifty years, and they aren't going to change. The second game starts at 4:15 and is expected to run until 7:30. So what's the point of scheduling Sixty Minutes for 7:00 and making an announcement every fucking week that "if you're expecting to see Sixty Minutes, it's going to be late this week"? Duh. It's going to be late every week between September and January. Schedule it at 7:30, drop half an hour of prime-time programming, and most of the time your schedule can remain in place.

Fox (the other network which carries NFL games on Sunday afternoons) seems to be able to do this, because all of their Sunday evening shows are half-hour programs, so it's easier to just bump one. Also, it looks like, at least for this season, Fox isn't even bothering to start their non-football programming until 8pm on Sundays during football season.

CBS, OTOH, has four one-hour programs scheduled on Sunday evenings, making it harder for them to bump a half-hour's worth of programming.

Also, just to note...not every "late" game starts at 4:15 Eastern. If the network has the "doubleheader" (Fox and CBS alternate weeks for running doubleheaders), the late game starts at 4:15; if it's a non-doubleheader week for the network, the late games (usually West Coast games) start at 4.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

Why does the end of 60 Minutes drag on much longer than necessary? All they need to do is cut "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney."

I know I for one do not need to know any more about how Andy Rooney sleeps, or what Andy Rooney does with his vacation time. I thought his piece on how horrible it was to be on vacation from work all of that time and only now getting back to the job was quite tone-deaf during this economy, and his suggestion that we are all sleeping too much based on the fact that he does was extreme stupidity.

[kenobi 65]

Why does the end of 60 Minutes drag on much longer than necessary? All they need to do is cut "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney."

No kidding. His piece a week ago was awful...he started with complaining that the USPS wants to close a bunch of smaller post offices in a cost-cutting move, but somehow segued to the fact that no one sends snail-mail letters anymore, and that he hates junk mail, and wishes that people still sent each other real letters.

[D_Odds]

I have to admit I am not a sports fan. Any given five minutes of this game looks exactly like any other given five minutes. I do not get the appeal.I think the same thing of the CBS, ABC and FOX network's Sunday night TV line-up. NBC gets a bye during football season.

Is this only a problem in the Eastern and Central time zones?

The networks pay an incredible amount of money to the NFL to air football games, and then recoup their costs by running commercials. It is very profitable for the networks. In order to get those exorbitant amounts of money paid, the NFL guarantees a certain amount of commercial time and play stoppages feed into that. Fitting in commercial time extends the game time.

Obviously you are not interested in why a 60-minute game (with 12 minutes between the half and shorter breaks between the 1st and 2nd qtr and 3rd and 4th qtr) takes more than 60 minutes to play. By the same token, I could not care less about the Cold Case of the week, or what is happening on The Amazing Race. CBS and the NFL have negotiated that football > regular programming.

[Raygun99]

Yes, I don't think enough's been made of the silly claim that an NFL game is only meant to take one hour from start to finish. There are sixty minutes of playing time, but what's counted as playing time and what isn't is rather rigidly laid out in the rule books. All timed games take longer than their officially laid out times (even soccer, what with injury time). Jeebus help you if you're waiting for an extra innings baseball game to be over for your program to start.

[notfrommensa]

I have watched pro football for years. I have always thought if 60 Minutes was not named 60 Minutes the CBS would have shortened the show to 30 or 45 minutes when the football games run past the alloted time. The format 60 Minutes can be shortened to 40 minutes or 20 minutes very easily.

But I think CBS used to get some ancillary benenfits when the games are delayed. 60 Minutes used to be one of its highest rated shows, so they got a natural lead in to their other shows. people tended not to change channels at 8:18 pm.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Yes, I don't think enough's been made of the silly claim that an NFL game is only meant to take one hour from start to finish.
I don't think anyone claimed that a football game is meant to take one hour. Besides, no other major sport takes three minutes of real time for each minute of clock time.

[Rysto]

I don't think anyone claimed that a football game is meant to take one hour. Besides, no other major sport takes three minutes of real time for each minute of clock time.

Hockey games have 60 minutes of clock time, and an NHL game will usually run between 2.5 to 3 hours.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

I don't think anyone claimed that a football game is meant to take one hour. Besides, no other major sport takes three minutes of real time for each minute of clock time.How about baseball? :)

Seriously, though, I think basketball games take about 150 television minutes for a 48 playing time minute game.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Baseball is timed?

[garygnu]

It ought to be.

[mhendo]

By the same token, I could not care less about the Cold Case of the week, or what is happening on The Amazing Race. Me neither. I'd much prefer to watch football than any of the other shit that passes for programming on a Sunday evening.

But i think that, even for football fans, the game would be improved considerably by reducing the number of stoppages and delays in play. Not just because it would make the game a more exciting and sustained spectacle, but because it might mean that the night-time games finish early enough so that people on the east coast don't have to stay up so late when they need to get up for work the next morning.

Look, i recognize that football is, for the TV stations and for the NFL, all about making money. Both groups care about the fans only insomuch as we make it possible for them to sleep in beds stuffed with cash. The NFL would happily cancel all football games if it would make more money that way, and TV stations would happily screen 24 hours of commercials a day if they thought we could be convinced to watch them.

That doesn't mean, however, that we should just shut up and take what they feed us. Take my example of the two-minute warning. Sure, there might have been a reason for introducing the rule in the first place (a silly reason, but whatever). That reason no longer applies, though, and so there's no need for the rule. I think it's pretty sad that so many football fans have not only internalized the rule, but actually argue that it improves the game by rewarding "clock management." Jesus, talk about drinking the Flavor-Aid. In what other sport do people actually look upon pointless, intentional, game-disrupting breaks in play as something to be admired? In what Orwellian world is a break, where no play occurs, actually taken by fans as a marker of good play?

Sure, good clock management might be an admirable skill, but it should be one that is demonstrated on the field, not arbitrarily helped by a pointless ad break. I'm impressed when a team marches down the field by going no-huddle, by making short passes that the receiver takes out of play, and by keeping the defense on the back foot with good play calling. I'm impressed when a defense counters this by keeping the ball in bounds, by hurrying the QB, and forcing the run. All of THAT is good clock management. Any defense of the two-minute warning is nothing more than a case of gullible fans who have been eating a shit sandwich for so long that they think it's actually bacon.Yes, I don't think enough's been made of the silly claim that an NFL game is only meant to take one hour from start to finish. Not sure anyone has actually made that claim. Certainly, no football fan in this thread has made that claim. But stacking up breaks that are actually detrimental to the game, just because you can and just to cram more ads in, sucks.

I feel the same way, by the way, about the fact that MLB agreed to longer breaks between half-innings in the LCS to allow FOX to shoehorn more commercials in. That's why, in last year's ALCS, we had a 2-0 game that took 3:25, and a 4-2 game that took 3:48. In the regular season, both of those games would likely have been over in comfortably under three hours.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

Baseball is timed?Maybe the smiley face didn't show up on your screen. It does on mine. I put it there to indicate that it was a joke.

[RealityChuck]

I have watched pro football for years. I have always thought if 60 Minutes was not named 60 Minutes the CBS would have shortened the show to 30 or 45 minutes when the football games run past the alloted time. They did in the first few years, when the show was still low-rated. They routinely had 20-minute versions of it. Once it became a top-rated show, though, CBS let it run the entire hour.

[SenorBeef]

Reading this thread, I suppose you could keep the clock running on out-of-bounds plays until the final 2 minutes.

They do this, actually - which is something that most people don't realize.

In the event that a carrier takes the ball out of bounds, the clock stops until the officials spot it, at which point the clock runs again. The exception to this is the final 2 minutes of the first half, or the final 5 minutes of the second half.

Special teams are just as much a part of the game as the offense or defense and not making them perform takes out a whole dimension of the game. Sometimes PATs miss and, even moreso, sometimes they miss in ways that have a very serious impact on the game.

This happened last week. The Browns were up 20 to 14 against Cincinatti. Cinci scored a touchdown, giving them an easy 1 point lead, right? Except that the kick was blocked, so the game was 20-20, which had a substantial effect on the outcome of the rest of the game...