I’ll admit, I never paid real attention to it till it worked against my own team – Bledsoe’s flagrant delay of game late in the first half against Miami in Week 13. The snap was literally at least 2 seconds after the game clock ran out. Wannestedt knew it. Bledsoe knew it. I knew it. The officials had no idea.
But since then, there have been some egregious examples. Not most outstanding, but most recent, was Cleveland’s 4th quarter TD against Pittsburgh in the AFC wildcard game just now to go from 27 points to 33.
The announcers knew it, too. Simms and Gumbel even talked about it. Simms basically said that it happens all the time, the officiating crew can’t be expected to watch the play clock, and that there’s frequently a “beat” between the expiration of the clock and the snapping of the ball.
First of all, in many cases (the two I’ve cited being good examples), there is far more than a “beat” in there. I’d wager there was a full second’s delay on this play before Holcomb took the snap.
And secondly, has it occurred to no one that coaches should be able to make a challenge based on a play-clock violation? I mean, hello? Shouldn’t this be on the list of reviewable plays? Why isn’t it already? Am I just crazy?
What I find much more egregious are overall clock mismanagement errors that occurs in the home team’s favor. I’ve seen this a couple of times lately, where the home team is down by a score or so and the clock doesn’t even start running for 5-6 seconds after a play has started. And if the opposing team is mounting a comeback the clock will start early or keep running for a tick or two after the ball has been dead and the clock signalled to stop. This is almost never caught and corrected.
BTW, and only slightly tangential, Butch Davis’ challenge of the Flexico Burress TD turned out to cost them big time.
How long could it possibly take? All you’d need is ANY shot of the game with the little inset play clock in the corner. All you’d need to do is look at it once, maybe twice.
How long can it possibly take to determine whether a guy put two feet on the ground?
Sure, it sounds easy, but that doesn’t account for bad camera angles, close calls, generally being careful not to screw up the review, and so forth.
How often do you see a close-up of the ball as it’s snapped–close enough to tell when the center snaps it, but also not obstructed by the massive linemen. I’m all for consistency in refereeing, and reviewing questionable plays, but if an exta second of waiting for the snap loses you the game, you didn’t deserve to win anyway. I’ve always liked the replay, and think the challenges system is a pretty good idea, but it’s just not worth the hassle here.
What really bugs me is when these professional athletes, playing in an all-important, season-ending playoff game, actually let the freaking play clock expire. Especially when the team is standing perfectly still in offensive formation, while the quarterback screams and hollers and just waits for the clock to expire so he can be yelled at by everyone and their grandmother.
I’m going to disagree here. Particularly late in the game, particularly in important games, and especially when the home crowd is very involved, clock management is an integral part of the game. A team that can’t get their plays off in time deserves to lose the game. Or at least not to have that play count in their favor. To my mind, what you’re saying is akin to saying it’s alright if the officials don’t always call offsides against the defense, because if the O-linemen can’t stop the guys coming at them from hitting the qb, they didn’t deserve to win anyway. Know what I mean?
Your points about the hassle of reviewing play-clock violations are well taken, however.
Ah, bristlesage. I didn’t want to start a new thread to bitch about that either. But that whole FG try fiasco was pretty bad. The bad snap, the VERY poor decision-making by the holder. But I thought the unnecessary roughing plays were stupider still. I found myself in complete agreement with Chris Collinsworth. Stoutamyre tackling TO and stealing 15 yards from his team, right after one of his teammates had made the exact same bonehead mistake… Just imagine if the Giants had had those 15 yards of field position to make that final FG a 25-yarder instead of a 40-yarder. Insane. In any case there’s plenty of blame to go around the Giants’ sideline – several guys can go home this year knowing that it was completely their fault that the team got knocked out in the WC round.
As a die hard 49rs fan I didn’t want to start a thread either, so I guess we’ll do a small hijack (sorry)
If either one of our teams could have managed to control players in the last minute the end of the game would have changed dramatically. T.O. kept up the great :smack: unsportsmanlike and the Giants couldn’t stop from responding… I hate to see that in football.
RE: the OP
No doubt about it, I agree. The play clock is there for a reason and the refs seem to not notice it quite a bit, in lots of games. You would think they could figure something out to better control the violations of this. I don’t know if allowing coaches to challenge is the answer or not, but something should be done.
White Lightning and whatami, no kidding on the mess that was the post-play fighting. That was ugly and stupid. A 25 yard field goal attempt? Perhaps even Bryant, whose talents might better be used kicking for the Rockettes, could have made that. Stoudamyer does deserve to go home feeling like the dunce he is. He has about nine months to shape up, and I hope he does. Arg.
Play clock violations, I’m with most of you on this. They’re both mostly necessary and somehow not worth it…I have no idea what to do about this. A play clock judge? I don’t know.
I noticed the same thing in the Steeler/Brown game today. It actually is one of those petty little things I get annoyed by. The play clock is there for a reason. Call the delay of game. My guess is that one call will help the offense get their shit together. I wonder why the NFL doesn’t allow the challenging of something like that? On the Browns touchdown pass, the clock was clearly visible on the screen, and the ball was clearly not snapped in time. That, to me, isn’t subjective like a holding call or pass interference. A quick review should be permitted.
I’ve also noticed that refs rarely call the defense for lining up in the neutral zone anymore. I’m not sure if the rules have changed, but I’ve seen guys clearly over the line. But since they don’t move, the refs don’t bother. Maybe it’s the camera angle.
I saw this in the 49ers game (or maybe it was the Steelers game, the games were so good they run together), and the announcers themselves wondered why this happens, and one of them even said, “Well, sometimes you can cheat that extra half second.”
Why in the bloody hell is the play clock not hooked up to some kind of horn that goes HOOOOOOOOONNNNK when the 40 seconds are up? That would fix things quite nicely, wouldn’t it? It would be like if the shot clock in basketball didn’t have a buzzer.
The reason that play clock violations are not reviewable is that the NFL made a philosophical decision not to allow reviews of penalties. Any review slows down the game, which is why teams are only allowed two per game, and none in the last two minutes of either half (yes, I’m aware that the video review judge can review on her own judgement).
As Simms pointed out, one of the problems is that the officials can’t see the play clock and the center at the same time, so they have to look away from the play to check the time (the “beat” between that White Lightning mentioned).
