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Lazuli  1mo ago (text post)   485 thread views

NFL Weekly Thread: Week 3

Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):

Thu 2024-09-19 8:15PM New England Patriots @ New York Jets
Sun 2024-09-22 1:00PM Chicago Bears @ Indianapolis Colts
Sun 2024-09-22 1:00PM Denver Broncos @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sun 2024-09-22 1:00PM Green Bay Packers @ Tennessee Titans
Sun 2024-09-22 1:00PM Houston Texans @ Minnesota Vikings
Sun 2024-09-22 1:00PM New York Giants @ Cleveland Browns
Sun 2024-09-22 1:00PM Philadelphia Eagles @ New Orleans Saints
Sun 2024-09-22 1:00PM Los Angeles Chargers @ Pittsburgh Steelers
Sun 2024-09-22 4:05PM Carolina Panthers @ Las Vegas Raiders
Sun 2024-09-22 4:05PM Miami Dolphins @ Seattle Seahawks
Sun 2024-09-22 4:25PM Detroit Lions @ Arizona Cardinals
Sun 2024-09-22 4:25PM Baltimore Ravens @ Dallas Cowboys
Sun 2024-09-22 4:25PM San Francisco 49ers @ Los Angeles Rams
Sun 2024-09-22 8:20PM Kansas City Chiefs @ Atlanta Falcons
Mon 2024-09-23 7:30PM Jacksonville Jaguars @ Buffalo Bills
Mon 2024-09-23 8:15PM Washington Commanders @ Cincinnati Bengals
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This is pretty off the reservation, and I'm sure would have major drawbacks, but I was thinking about how much I hate the end of close football games. Specifically, the point at which the game becomes more about gaming the clock than it does playing one's opponent to the best of your ability. (This usually happens somewhere between 10 and 2 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter).

The only way I could think to solve this problem would be to eliminate the game clock entirely, and switch instead to a possession clock. Each team would get a pre-determined number of possessions, and would have, say, 3 minutes to score or punt. Clock stoppage would work basically the same as it does in the last 2 minutes of the current game (out-of-bounds, incomplete pass, penalty. Probably want to add stoppage on first downs like in college) and you'd get an elective stoppage or two per possession (to allow for running plays near the end of the clock). Turnovers don't count as possessions for the recovering team, so they become way more valuable as you'd be able to score and then immediately get the ball back.

No more useless kickoffs. No sitting on a small lead and milking the clock. Just balls out football from start to finish, unless it's a complete blowout, in which case the game wouldn't have been compelling anyways. Tell me why this would suck.

This is why rugby union has become my favorite code - more violent than soccer while way fewer stoppages than American.

Baseball has the best game endings for that reason, no clock. You have to let the other guy take his chances.

I wonder if that could be adapted to football rules with possessions.

Not unless you allowed unlimited scoring per possession, i.e. the scoring team gets to receive the ensuing kickoff and possession doesn't change unless the defense makes a stop. Otherwise it would be like baseball if teams were limited to one run per inning. One side effect of this is that there would be a lot less going for it on 4th when in field goal range, since 3 points and maintaining possession is worth more than the risk of turning the ball over on downs. The real reason this would never happen, though, is that it would lead to longer games, and the accompanying injury risk. Instead of teams running out the clock you'd have teams putting scrubs in to manage their starters, which I doubt would make for entertaining football.

Basketball games using the Elam ending are much better than the standard clock-based format, so I think there's some proof of concept for this being preferable, even though it's implausible that it'll ever be applied to the highest level of the sport.

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