The NFL had an interesting case of aggressive rules lawyering this weekend by the Baltimore Ravens:
The basic exploit that the Ravens hacked is that a game can end on an offensive penalty. A punt is considered an offensive play for rule purposes. So the Ravens wanted to minimize their risk and they were willing to concede two points to kill the clock as those two points only mattered to the gamblers that the NFL officially pays no mind to. If you believe that, you need to get into the bridge buying business. The Ravens punt team held every potential defender until the punter could run out the clock and then step out of bounds.
That was legal and the game was over on a cheap but legal play.
So let’s think as referees for this scenario. The first thing to do is try to figure out the assumptions behind the rule. The assumption is that most of the time the offensive team if it is actively playing the ball instead of kneeling needs the points. In that assumption, it makes no sense to reward a team for committing a penalty as yardage in the last 10-20 seconds of a game is far less valuable than time. The scenario that this guards against is the offensive team needing to go 30 yards for a TD, the QB seeing nothing open and he tells his center to hold his opponent after a four count to get another shot at the end zone. This makes enough sense although the rule that the fouled team can decline the penalty also guards against this advantage transfer scenario.
If I was a soccer referee and I saw a team up 1-0 taking a goal kick have their ten field players clutch, grab and piggy back ride their opponent’s field players to run out the time, my first response in a USSF/FIFA match would be to continue to add time after I book the entire team for unsporting behavior. NFL officials don’t have the ability to add time on a non-defensive penalty. Once the clock hits 00:00 the game is over if the ball is no longer in play.
I would be worried about retaliation. If I was an NFL coach I would tell my defensive players to hold, kick, punch, apply illegal hands to the face and otherwise attempt to draw a flag on themselves as soon as they feel like they are being fouled. That creates offsetting penalties and another nice big mess for the referees to handle.
This was creative rules lawyering by the Ravens. The NFL will respond. My bet is that the defensive team in cases of egregrious planned tactical fouling will be allowed to elect to have the play replayed at the original time on the clock. As soon as there is no reward of taking time away, this behavior that brings the game into disrepute will no longer be engaged in.
/OPEN THREAD
Dave Ruddell
I’ve seen people argue that it was a Palpably Unfair Act, but that seems like a real stretch.
The Ravens also did the same thing in the Super Bowl (although not as well), so this shouldn’t have been a surprise.
Roger Moore
I would add the option of accepting the result of the play while keeping the time on the clock. So if the Ravens want to foul and then concede the safety, the other team gets the time and the 2 points. That should be enough disincentive to prevent this kind of thing.
The Dangerman
It would be offsetting but the time on the clock wouldn’t be replaced; game still over.
It was an interesting play and I’m fairly surprised it has never really been used previously (Super Bowl was the same tactic but not nearly as egregious); in theory, the offense could run off many, many tens of seconds by playing with 12 players (having 12 doesn’t get the flag until after the play) and have each of their nonpunting 11 players grab the opposing 11 players by grabbing whatever they have to (facemask? hair? nuts?) to incapacitate them.
It will get legislated away.
ChrisB
I’ve always thought it made sense as a game was ending for the defense to hold every receiver at the line of scrimmage to prevent a quick drive down the field. It’s a 5 yard penalty and I’d be happy to trade the five yards for 6 or 8 seconds running off the clock and avoiding the risk of a 20 or 30 yard completion.
I also always thought it made send for the defense to anticipate the snap count when the ball was inside the one yard line and just tee off on the offensive line. If you’re early, so what? The penalty is half the distance to the goal, an irrelevant few inches. If you’re correct, you potentially make the tackle in the backfield for a several yard loss. And who knows, you may get the offense to move early.There would be other consequences to be sure . . . .
clay
As an exercise in exploiting rules to one’s maximum advantage, it’s an interesting strategy. But that’s what Hank Hill derisively decried as “lawyer ball.”
As someone who thinks that football games should be won by, y’know, playing football, I hope the NFL finds a clear-cut way of avoiding this situation. Perhaps it’s a type of “unsportsmanlike conduct” (multiple intentional penalties seems pretty unsportsmanlike to me), where the participants get suspended and fined? That might be a bit harsh…
trollhattan
Am now anticipating Chip Kelly instructing his (very busy) punting team to take a safety every time. Because SUPER GENIUS!
Davebo
Looks like clever coaching to me. Sure, the league may legislate this tactic out of existence but until they do I hope my teams coach, faced with the same situation avails himself of it!
Yoda Dog
Eh. I hate lawyer ball. I absolutely HATED when the Pats pulled that weird formation shift move against the Ravens in the playoffs a couple years back. It was legal, but it was cheap as hell and pulled them out of TWO third and longs in a game they were losing. The NFL outlawed it immediately after the season. This feels alot like that. It was legal, yes, but c’mon… just lineup and play the game without trying to glitch the matrix, Harbaugh. It’s bush league.
Anonymous At Work
Football at all levels, sub-collegiate, collegiate, and professional, have some variation of the Palpably Unfair Rule that permits to add an untimed down in this situation, if the play was that unfair. It wasn’t. No personal fouls, no face mask grabbing, just open holding. That the defense lined up to permit the strategy is on them (albeit, they risked not having a return man deep if they kept 11-men up front), as is their failure to remember that the Ravens did indeed use a variation of this in the Super Bowl to kill significantly more time, and, more importantly, give them better field position, for 2 points.
FlipYrWhig
I’m surprised that a punt is considered an offensive play. IIRC the Pro Bowl lineups used to list P as a defensive position.
CrunchyFrog
@Dave Ruddell: The Super Bowl play was fundamentally different in that no intentional penalty was committed. There were 11 seconds left and Baltimore was punting from inside their 5 yard line. The punter ran around for 8 seconds before stepping out of bounds. The net result was that in exchange for 2 points they had free kick from their own 20 instead of a rushed punt from the back of the end zone, and SF had only 3 seconds left. This greatly reduced SFs already small odds of winning.
Yesterday, by contrast, the key to the play was every offensive blocker blatantly held a defender, incurring a penalty but allowing the last 20 seconds to tick off the clock. The intentional mass penalty is the key difference.
Baltimore’s super bowl tactic has a long history. In the 1984 playoffs Chicago used it against Washington, reducing their lead from 6 to 4 points, to give their defense more breathing room to work in the final minutes.
TFinSF
This would elicit suspensions and fines for the defenders punching and kicking, so probably not a great idea.
TFinSF
I totally disagree. The one thing college football has on the NFL is an increased diversity of offensive formations and strategies. The NFL is too homogeneous. I’m for anything within the rules that exploits an advantage (like the Pats formations).
TFinSF
@efgoldman:
Zing!
Yoda Dog
@TFinSF: That’s cool, I hear that dissenting opinion alot and I respect it. It is a subjective difference between this (or the pats thing) and normal trickery like, say, a flea-flicker, which I think we can all agree is awesome when successful.
I think the difference for me is: if its something that seems like the NFL would probably address it afterwards?, like the pats formations shifts and probably this holding business… then its shady in the first place and Im not into it. I’m a vikes fan and I don’t need or want to see Zimmer pulling this kind of crap out of his bag, personally.
Mike J
@clay:
This is the proper answer. Wide latitude on unsporting conduct, with everybody made well aware of it before hand. And yes, fines/suspensions for the people who called the play. The first few times it happens a coach will yell and scream like a seven year old saying, :”you never told me I *couldn’t* throw dirt at my sister, you just said mud!” After the NFL refuses to back down, people will come to accept it.
On the other hand, we have the forward pass because of rules lawyering.
quakerinabasement
Three words: Loss of down.
No, nothing to do with balding ducks. If “egregious planned tactical fouling” included a loss of down–meaning time is put back on the clock AND possession changes–this scenario will never happen.
Thornton Hall
The correct response:
Baseball.
Thornton Hall
@FlipYrWhig: Much of the logic of American Football is based on it technically being a variation of (global) football. See, also, “try” as a synonym for extra point attempt.
sigaba
@Thornton Hall:
This does highlight one of football’s weakest points and one of baseball’s strongest: a baseball team cannot play against the clock.
ETA-
@Thornton Hall:
FTFY.
Yoda Dog
@efgoldman: Again, the difference is very subjective. But I do respectfully disagree that this holding play and the other examples you gave are the same thing. It is legal but there can also be nuance and room for debate. This holding thing is legal but probably not for long.
It’s not like I’m outraged by it, I dont mean to give that impression. If the NFL came out and said that was cool or even failed to address it in the offseason, I could, at that point, adjust my opinion and accept it as part of the game pretty painlessly. But it didnt feel like part of football to me when I saw it and I’d bet you a solid nickel they will change the rules to take the incentive out intentional holding in the offseason.
Yoda Dog
@efgoldman: But that’s not what they did! And they were not penalized. They got their -2 and their W. It just felt cheap and probably should be illegal, much like the Harbaugh brothers’ collective fashion sense.
George
As both a sports fan and a strategic planner, I appreciate your dissection of the play and your explanation!
Dave Ruddell
@CrunchyFrog: Well, they did hold, it just wasn’t as blatant. If anything, it appears that Harbaugh learned his lesson.
randy khan
I would guess that the odds are that the NFL will adopt some rule change to discourage this sort of thing, and from my perspective that’s one of the things that’s wrong with American football as a sport – it has a million little rules and tweaks the rules constantly to maintain competitive balance, etc. Just this year, there were nine rules changes, including moving the spots for point-after attempts and for touchbacks after kickoffs (but not in other circumstances).
Compare that to baseball, which has very few changes in the competitive rules from decade to decade – the biggest change in recent years (instant replay) didn’t affect game play at all.
Priest
NFL referees do have the discretion under the Palpably Unfair Act provision of the rules to essentially wave off the play and require a “do-over” and put the time back on the clock. From commentary I’ve read about this recently (some before yesterday’s game), it sounds like the refs would resort to it if there was a second incident, giving a warning after the first. Which allows a team to get away with it if they only need to do it once.
BC in Illinois
Years and years ago, I remember the Washington team taking an intentional safety at Dallas, to avoid giving the ball back to the Dallas offense. The quarterback–Joe Theissman, if I remember correctly–simply turned around and ran out the back of the end zone as time expired. Game over.
The unhappiness began when he came back into the end zone and spiked the ball.