2019 Rules Changes

[bisonlj]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Remember where this method of starting the play clock began? It was in the WLAF in 1991, which means the NFL was using it to experiment with.

What was the problem they were seeking to address? Variation of the amount of time a team that wanted to exhaust the period clock would have, due to variation in the amount of time officials took to ready the ball after a running play -- which for pro football wasn't much variation.

The amount of time a team that wanted to bleed off the clock could would differ only between plays that ended with a ballcarrier's going down bounds. When the period clock was running, the team on defense could delay the RFP a little by being slightly uncooperative to a degree the officials would not stop the clock. But if the offense wanted to hurry up, having a fixed amount of time between downs with the clock running did not help against such tactics by the defense. It helped only if the team on offense wanted to consume time and the officials were slow, and only when the preceding play left the clock running.

The amount of time the WLAF used at first for this, 35 seconds, produced a pace that was slightly faster than even Canadian football's and was difficult for offenses to use any plays where they had to get a good pre-snap look at the defense or to signal anything complicated, so the NFL never adopted that short a time; when they finally did adopt such a procedure, they made it 45 seconds, which proved in a few years to be a lavish amount of time for them.

This is definitely a positive impact of the rule change. We saw it in NCAA when we implemented it and in our NFHS experiment. The other factor is plays where the run ended near the umpire and he spots it quickly. This could result in a dead ball period of less than 40 seconds. Plus it nearly guarantees consistent crew to crew and play to play within games.