Two minute drill: Why do we hurry?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by ChickenOfNC

Someone in another thread commented about the NFL's preseason experiment of putting the umpire in the offensive backfield with R, except for after the two minute warning. The reason given was so they could be quicker spotting the ball for the two minute offense.

This brought up something that has bugged me since I've been officiating (5 years):

Why should we (officials) deviate from our normal pace, just because we're at the end of the half? I've seen it time after time, officials rushing around to spot the football, giving the offense the opportunity to run one or two extra plays.

Why would we all of a sudden decide to give one team an advantage, when we work so hard the rest of the game to make sure we DON'T?

I think it's because failure to ready the ball quickly at other times doesn't affect the game, because nobody wants to snap it quickly then, while failure to ready the ball fast enough when team A does want to play it does affect the game.

Of course there could be the odd occasion when team A wants to run a quick play in the middle of a period, and the officials don't know it.

Robert