Maybe it’s just me, but this season seems to be unusually boring.
It is. The Bears/Titans game is the only one on in Chicago, so I’m watching hockey. I’m following the NFL on ESPN and Yahoo fantasy. Cardinals/Falcons looks like it’s a good game, but no interest in watching a 3rd string Bears QB get slaughtered by the Titans.
Ravens beat the Bengals, helped by a truly strange final play: Punter holds the ball and drops back into the endzone, killing time. All other Ravens players are instructed to hold any Bengal they can, thus postponing the time at which the punter is forced to step out of the endzone. Multiple flags are thrown. Time runs out.
A dozen or so holding penalties by the offense on the final play do not extend the game - Bengals get their 2 points for the safety, but do not get to receive a kick and try for the runback. Game over; Ravens win 19-14.
As a Cowboys fan I’m happy to see the Seahawks lose. Now I’m more concerned about the Giants. I’ll go ahead and make my prediction now that the final game the Cowboys play this season will be against the Giants.
I saw that play. That’s what holding looks like when you really don’t care if it gets called or not.
That’s the kind of play that results in changes to the rules.
The NFL didn’t change any rules when they did it in the Super Bowl. What makes you think they’ll do it now?
I didn’t see any flags on that play, although there’s at least one blatant hold. The play today was even worse; multiple holds, one lineman taking a defender to the ground, and four (I think) flags. All of which bought the punter the time he needed to run out the clock
If a team wants to take an intentional safety, that’s fine. I don’t even mind when a team takes an intentional delay of game. You give up the points, or give up the yardage, and take your chances. This was different; this was a team deliberately fouling and paying no penalty (and, in fact, benefiting from it). I think that’s where the rules might need a change.
I see the boredom rising in part out of PEDs. As the players become more mutanic, we start to lose a palpable human connection to them, and the game becomes like a thing that happens in a snowglobe. But, beyond that, I am starting to think that a lot of the injuries are related to PED use – I mean, thirty years ago, “ACL” was an obscure anatomy term that the majority of football fans had not heard of. When the game becomes so heavily saturated with injuries and players held up by bubble gum and bailing wire, it seriously starts to lose its appeal.
Of course, the rule set that takes an MA+40 to understand is not helping. If the game was straightforward enough to make it worth the 100 minutes of marketing for twelve minutes of action, maybe the fanbase would be stronger, but even the actual action itself has become mostly mundane.
Seems like the Grey Cup must have been good, though.
It was the exact same play. Here’s a better clip. I’d guess the “obvious hold” you’re referring to was by 84 at the tail end of the play, but watch the line when the ball is snapped - they’re all holding for all they’re worth. Same with the right side when the camera follows the punter that way. There’s no way a punter with just 2 yards behind him can avoid a rush for 8 seconds without that kind of concerted effort. The only difference was in the time they left on the clock - 00:04 in the Super Bowl vs. 00:00 today.
How would you write that rule change? Unless you want to start penalizing intent rather than action (a path I don’t think the league wants to start down), I don’t know how you’d prevent something like this.
Game can’t end on a defensive penalty, right? So maybe extend that to ‘game can’t end on an offensive penalty on a play that ends up giving up the ball’? Put a second on the clock, they can either try to run the kick back, or fair-catch it to allow a hail mary?
I think the Ravens end was a travesty. I would simply make a change in the rules that say when time runs out on a safety and the offense has committed a penalty, then the team shall be required to free kick on an untimed play. If that kick goes out of bounds, the receiving team shall get one untimed play from that point on the field.
Same intent, obviously, but no flags thrown. I wonder if the refs were surprised by the intentional safety and forgot to look for the usual things like holding.
Also, how did Colin Kaepernick’s hair get so long in just three years?
That’s the kind of thing I was thinking of, too.
It would have to be at least a little more complicated than that.
If the offensive holding penalty is accepted, then (assuming the holding was outside of the end zone, as it was yesterday), then the next play would be the offense having fourth down again ten yards or so farther back. Adding that as an untimed down is a bit silly. If the penalty is declined, then by current rule the defense must accept the play as run.
So, at a minimum we’re at: If a game ends on a play with a change of possession, and there is a penalty against the offensive team, the defense may elect to take a single untimed down, regardless of whether the offensive penalty is accepted.
That still needs some way of resolving a situation with offsetting penalties, since a game-ending change of possession is probably a wild situation with a high likelihood of penalties on both sides. Simplest is just only have the clause apply if there’s no defensive penalty.
I can’t think right now of any way to game this rule, but I bet some smart Doper could.
I don’t think you’ll be able to change the rule, and frankly I don’t see a need for it. This has apparently happened twice in a matter of a few years, both by the same team.
Thanksgiving day had a couple good games. Otherwise, yeah, boring season. The Patriots are good, the Browns are bad. What’s new?
Well, the Raiders are good. The Cowboys are quite good. The Panthers have fallen dramatically.
Also the Lions are leading the NFC North and the Broncos are currently out of the playoffs.
Why don’t they just change the rule to “A game can end on an offensive penalty EXCEPT on fourth down”?
Probably because there is no real call to make a new rule. It is called a “safety” for a specific reason: a way to give up two points so that you do not have to fret about giving up 6. Part of football is all the cunning strategizing. I mean, if you want to make up new rules, why not have a rule that a time-out is assessed at the end of a play, not where ever the clock happens to be when it is called, so that a team cannot run the clock down to :02, then call time-out, in order to kick the winning FG?
The safety is not the problem. The problem is that a team commits multiple, blatant, deliberate fouls and is rewarded for doing so.