I am trying to envision ways to burn clock at the end of a game. Say you have a 2nd&8 at the opponent’s 40, a 7pt lead, and they have no timeouts left. You can easily get the clock down to :30 or so on 2 plays, maybe even :20 if you run time-consuming reverses. Now say you have 4th&5 with about :30 left and your left tackle obviously and deliberately goes early in a non-punt formation – it is inside a minute, are the officials required to do the ten-second run-off? If there is a second false start, would they have to cough up ten more for you? Could you just burn the clock on penalty run-offs, or do they only do one?
I assume you’ll get 1, but the refs will be in to your tactics, and refuse to do it again.
No dice. “The defense always has the option to decline the 10-second runoff and have the yardage penalty enforced…” (source: Section 7, article 1 - caution: pdf).
How 'bout just taller goalposts?
And a false start probably makes you (a tiny bit) worse off: since you’re running down the clock, presumably you’ve made sure to get tackled in-bounds the previous play so the clock is still running before the punt. But the false-start penalty stops the clock, so there’s a few extra seconds on the clock when you do punt.
[Though I think just letting the play clock run out and taking the delay of game penalty doesn’t hurt the punting team here, right?]
I don’t know who the announcers were for the SF/Carolina game on the NFL radio network, but I laughed and then called my wife when one of them came out with this gem after the QB overthrew one of his receivers:
“When your front leg is straight your balls tend to go higher.”
My favorite part was Cam Newton acting like he gotten shot after number 55 of the Niners went flying offside near the goal line. European soccer players gave it a 9.4.
I heard Coach K called and asked him to come demonstrate at Cameron next week…
To be fair, that had to be the most ridiculous offside jump I’ve ever seen.
I thought it was part of the Chinese Acrobats halftime show