The current 10-yard rule is that the penalty for failing to immediately start to retreat and continue retreating until the ball is kicked or you get 10 yards away is a straight yellow card.
The problem isn’t the rule–the problem is the Refs not enforcing it.
As for advantage, you are quite correct–that is the rule and it is frequently invoked.
There is a significant difference, though. In football, if the ref plays advantage, play continues and cannot be brought back. In rugby, the ref can let play proceed for a good 20 - 30 seconds to see if the non-offending team gains advantage. If they do not, he can then award them the original penalty/free-kick.
I agree about the QB protection rules, certainly. It got a little ridiculous when you have plays like Kiwanuka (IIRC) letting up on Vince Young on that 4th down play because he’s scared to death he’ll do something to incur a penalty.
“Unabated to the quarterback” isn’t very vague. When the defense encroaches near the point of the snap or is offside, the refs will continue the play so that the offense has a chance to make something of it as the non-offending party. But with a player charging at the QB with no blockers in the way, it’s certainly not to the offense’s advantage to keep the play running, so they stop it.
And FWIW, I’d be in favor of a 5th quarter for OT. Everything else has strong downsides to me. I wouldn’t mind if more games ended in ties.
That still doesn’t guarantee both teams will get a possession, which is the only reason to change from the sudden death format in the first place.
I wouldn’t mind just having a 5th quarter like Beef suggests, but that wouldn’t work very well logistically.
Nope. They can’t sell any ad space for it because statistically virtually no games go to overtime, and since most games are on at 1:00pm Eastern most overtime games need to get finished up as quickly as possible to make way for the 4:15pm games.
When it comes to watching football, overtime is the shit. It’s truly amazing how quickly they can line up and hike the ball after a punt. I’m not positive on this, but I think they get just a regular playclock, so it’s just as fast as between any two plays.
Well, in Soccer you will find most refs only play advantage for about 3-5 seconds, but they can and do bring it back if the advantage does not materialize.
Their definition of “advantage” is also a bit strict. If you retain posession of the ball and still have all your limbs attached, you are almost always better off playing on than in stopping for a free kick that let’s the defense get organized. If the offence committed was severe enough to warrant a yellow card, the procedure is to play advange, and if advantage does not occur, stop play, give the yellow, and set up the free kick. If the advantage occurs, then play continues until the next regular stoppage of play, no matter how long that might be. At that stoppage, the Ref will then give the yellow, and the game restarts in whatever manner was called for by the natural stoppage.