Lets Talk the end of Lions/Falcons

[TheKillerNacho]

Just now, Bullet Club said:

No, the Lions don't get another play. They weren't getting a play off in 2 seconds. It's not removing the run-off completely, it's just an exclusion to the rule.

Uh... considering the refs stopped the clock and the Lions can get set in that time, they could've gotten another play. I'm not sure if youre misunderstanding something?

[Mox]

1 minute ago, TheKillerNacho said:

Uh... considering the refs stopped the clock and the Lions can get set in that time, they could've gotten another play. I'm not sure if youre misunderstanding something?

You just use common sense and end the game. You're making this harder than it needs to be.

[TheKillerNacho]

Just now, Bullet Club said:

You just use common sense and end the game.

So you want to make it a referee judgement call, then? What if it is something on the fringe of possibility, like 6 seconds? Do you want the refs deciding whether or not the Lions get to run a play or not based on their opinions of what is possible and what is not?

I strongly disagree with this notion... rules need to be precise in order to promote fairness.

[paul-mac]

Rule is fine, but the Lions should be criticised for not having any timeouts left. 

 

If they’d just kept a timeout then they could stop the clock and have one more shot. One thing that particularly bugs me is when offenses use timeouts to avoid delay of game penalties. Just take the 5 yard penalty. That timeout is far more valuable at the end of the game in this situation. 

[theuntouchable]

1 minute ago, paul-mac said:

Rule is fine, but the Lions should be criticised for not having any timeouts left. 

 

If they’d just kept a timeout then they could stop the clock and have one more shot. One thing that particularly bugs me is when offenses use timeouts to avoid delay of game penalties. Just take the 5 yard penalty. That timeout is far more valuable at the end of the game in this situation. 

Except if they didn't use their timeouts when they did then they wouldn't have even received the ball back until after the two minute warning. 

[theuntouchable]

6 minutes ago, TheKillerNacho said:

So you want to make it a referee judgement call, then? What if it is something on the fringe of possibility, like 6 seconds? Do you want the refs deciding whether or not the Lions get to run a play or not based on their opinions of what is possible and what is not?

I strongly disagree with this notion... rules need to be precise in order to promote fairness.

I think they could get together and figure out a rough estimate of the length of time to get set in specific scenarios. how far are the players from the LOS? Are there any players on the ground? How many? Etc etc it'd be tough but the current rule is junk.

[Mox]

2 minutes ago, TheKillerNacho said:

So you want to make it a referee judgement call, then? What if it is something on the fringe of possibility, like 6 seconds? Do you want the refs deciding whether or not the Lions get to run a play or not based on their opinions of what is possible and what is not?

I strongly disagree with this notion... rules need to be precise in order to promote fairness.

Absolutely. Fairness is not allowing the refs to actively cost you a game due to a technicality. The only reason this matters is because the Lions could've gotten another play off. If it's physically impossible for them to do so, end the game.

[theuntouchable]

1 minute ago, Bullet Club said:

Absolutely. Fairness is not allowing the refs to actively cost you a game due to a technicality. The only reason this matters is because the Lions could've gotten another play off. If it's physically impossible for them to do so, end the game.

I agree with that. It'd be hard but I do think they could come up with a few different scenarios and come up with a length of time to get set for a play to use as a guideline. 

[TL-TwoWinsAway]

3 hours ago, TheKillerNacho said:

To play devil's advocate, what if there was only two seconds left on the clock? Would it be fair to punish the Falcons in that case by giving the Lions an additional play that they would've never had a shot of being able to get off if not for the wrong call on the TD?

As may have been mentioned before this post, there wasn't a pile.  The Lions would've had no issue lining up and snapping the ball in a legal formation within 8 seconds... it's something that they practice, and they've executed it before.  Had the ref not signaled that it was a TD, they would have been lined up for another play: the majority of the offense was still in position.

I understand if there was 4 or 5 seconds, but 8 is plenty of time.  And, if the Falcons weren't ready, that's fine: penalty on the defense, one more play.

The Lions being punished for an official review is asinine.

[showtime]

2 hours ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

It's questionable if they could have gotten another play off to be honest. Not impossible, but no guarantee they would have been able to line up and get it off. 

 

In that situation, there's almost no doubt they would have gotten another play off.

[showtime]

3 hours ago, TheKillerNacho said:

I didn't see a thread open for this. But if you somehow missed the ending of this game it went like this:

Golden Tate appeared to have caught the game-winning touchdown with 9 seconds left to play. The officials called it a touchdown on the field. The officials stopped the game to review the touchdown. It was later determined he was an inch or two short, and was overturned. By rule, this resulted in a 10-second runnoff, since the Lions could not stop the clock as they did not have a timeout remaining. However, with 9 seconds left on the clock, it would've been entirely possible if the play was ruled short initially, that the Lions would've been able to hurry and get one more play off to try to win the game.

Should the NFL rules committee discuss changing the 10-second run-off as a rule in the postseason? Because it really did leave a bitter taste in the mouth of anyone watching the backend of that game. Imo, the 10-second runoff should not apply in cases where the refs stop the clock (or at the very least, not let it end the game in that case). The other solution would be to not auto-review touchdowns; which would've forced the Falcons to challenge it which would also remove the run-off... Or reduce it to a 5 second runnoff?

If the referee stops the clock for any reason within 10 seconds remaining, there should be no time ran off the clock at all.  Why should the offense lose time because the refs stopped the game from progressing?  Changing it to 5 seconds wouldn't really change much and eventually that would negatively impact some team in the future.

[Forge]

I have no problems with the rule. You can debate the merits of a 10 second run off, but I think 5 seconds is too short. 7 or 8 could be viable, but then depending on which you choose, it may not have mattered in this situation. Could they dig deeper into this situation? Sure. You could go through every nfl game on a given season, take the average time it takes to set up in a hurry up 2 minute drill,  given the amount of yardage changed and base it on that, but you may be needlessly complicating matters (IE, if it's a 6 yard gain, they can get that set a lot faster than say, if it had been a 45 yard game, and thus, if it's over a certain amount of yardage, it's a 12 second run off, while if it's under a certain amount, it's an 8 second run off), but I think that the situations are so isolated that I don't think that's something that they would really look into.

[Forge]

3 minutes ago, showtime said:

In that situation, there's almost no doubt they would have gotten another play off.

Key word is almost

[TheKillerNacho]

1 minute ago, showtime said:

If the referee stops the clock for any reason within 10 seconds remaining, there should be no time ran off the clock at all.  Why should the offense lose time because the refs stopped the game from progressing?  Changing it to 5 seconds wouldn't really change much and eventually that would negatively impact some team in the future.

Hows that? Being able to line up and get a snap off in 5 seconds is virtually unheard of.

[Forge]

2 hours ago, TheKillerNacho said:

While this is true, they were robbed the ability to try. Pundits have noted the Lions have done it in seven seconds in prior games.

But what about other teams? What if a team like the Texans were only able to do it in 9-10 seconds? Are we changing the run off based on what team is playing?