Supplemental material including comments on clock management in recent football games and errata for the book Football Clock Management

These items are in chronological order with the most recent at the top of the page. This page got so big that it began to download too slowly so I broke it into a separate page for each year.

Batting a punt to run out the clock
A high school official brought this to my attention. He has not seen it on the field, but he and I both see it in the rule book. Neither of us likes it and we both agree the rule should be clarified to prevent this tactic.

Team A has the lead but cannot take a knee because it is fourth down and they have to punt. After the ball is kicked, there will be about ten seconds left in the game. The principle would apply, albeit less finally, at the end of the first half.

The Team B receiver decides to get away from the ball. (By the way, I hate punt returners who do not catch catchable balls on the fly or who do not return bouncing balls where there is little danger of a muff in the presence of kicking team members. It is a firing offense on my teams generally.)

The punting team members start batting the ball back toward the end zone behind them as explicitly permitted by NFHS Rule 9-7-2 exception. They keep on batting until time runs out. By rule 6-2-5, the receiving team gets the ball at the spot of first touching by the punting team, but that does them no good if there is no time left on the clock.

I think it violates Rule 3-6-2-f as delay of the game. In that case, the ball should be moved five yards toward the leading team’s goal line and the batting time put back on the clock. The official says it cannot be delay because the ball is live. I guess the logic of that would be that the penalty is for preventing “promptness in putting the ball in play…” and the ball is already in play while it is being batted.

Obviously, the sole purpose of the rule is to enable the punting team to prevent the ball from going into the end zone for a touchback. But that only takes one bat generally. Using the rule repeatedly just to prevent the trailing team from running any more plays during the remaining time is anti-competitive and unsportsmanlike. It is reminiscent of the 9/10/78 Raiders-Chargers “Holy Roller” play that was promptly outlawed in the NFL.

Until the rule is changed or clarified, receiving teams should make sure they catch such a punt to prevent serial batting. If they are not going to do a kick return, they should fair catch it to maximize the time remaining in the game.

I think the referee should stop the clock when the ball would have stopped after the first bat under the general rule 1-1-6 which says,

The referee has authority to rule promptly, and in the spirit of good sportsmanship, on any situation not specifically covered in the rules.

1/5/08 Wild Card Playoff game between Jags and Steelers
Watching the end of the Jags victory over the Steelers I thought the Jags screwed up their clock management and made the victory far tougher than necessary. Specifically, I thought they should try for another first down rather than take a deliberate delay penalty in the final minutes.

So I looked at the official play-by-play that you can see for yourself at http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/playbyplay?game_id=29517&displayPage=tab_play_by_play&season=2007&week=POST18. Here are the details of the key time in the game and my comments about the decisions Jacksonville made.

Play-by-play	Reed comment
3-2-PIT 43 2:00 incomplete pass	The announcers commented and I agree that JAX should have made sure they snapped the ball for this play before the 2:00 warning. They were in a hurry-up mode which means they should snap the ball ASAP and they did not.
4-2-PIT 43 1:56 QB scrambles up the middle for 32 yards to the PIT 11	At this point, the two teams both needed to switch clock management gears 180 degrees. Before this play, JAX should be in a hurry-up and PIT in a slowdown. After this play, the opposite. The reason is that JAX became the favorite as a result of the play. Before the play, PIT was the favorite to win.
timeout #1 by PIT at 1:34	Steelers called this timeout too slow. The play probably took about six seconds. They should have called timeout immediately after the play ended at 1:50
1-10-PIT 11 1:34 run loss of two	correct clock management
timeout #2 by PIT at1:30	correct clock management, Jags within FG range so Steelers need to conserve time for their post-FG comeback
2-12-PIT 13 1:30 run to PIT 8	correct clock management
timeout #3 by PIT at 1:25	correct clock management
3-7-PIT 8 1:25 run to PIT 2	correct clock management
4-1-PIT 2 :40 Jags deliberately took delay penalty	This is where I thought maybe they should go for the first. I had not been aware of the down. Since it was fourth down, they did the right thing. Announcer John Madden said he would have gone for a touchdown then settled for the field goal on fourth down. He’s wrong. Jags coach Jack Del Rio did the right thing. Madden needs to study the decision trees in my Football Clock Management book and get someone to explain expected value to him. Madden said he does not take “chip shot” field goals for granted. Neither do I, but that’s not the correct analysis. The correct analysis is what course of action is most likely to lead to a victory. In a decision tree, you choose the branch that has the highest expected value. The fact that high-probability events like chip shot field goals sometimes fail is irrelevant. You make the decision that is most likely to result in victory. It it misses, that’s life.
4-6-PIT 7 :40 FG good Jags take lead at 31-29	correct clock management

The clock management by Jags coach Del Rio was correct. Parenthetically, in 2006, I got into a long conversation with the owner of Amador Valley Exercise Equipment in Dublin, CA. He is a friend and former trainer of Jack Del Rio, who is from nearby Hayward, CA. The trainer was very excited about my depiction of my clock management book and said he was going to tell Del Rio about it. I do not know if he did. I do not recall a subsequent order for the book from the Jags. But I cannot say for sure whether a team does not have the book because coaches move around from team to team and some buy using a name that would not reveal who they are.

In their second possession of the fourth quarter, Steelers quarterback Ben Rothlisberger violated my clock management rules by getting tackled on a two-point conversion attempt from the 12 yard line (after a holding penalty on the first attempt). He should have lateraled rather than allow himself to be tackled. In a PAT play, the defense getting possession means the play is over. They cannot score or gain any advantage on the subsequent play—a kick return—from a take away on a PAT play.

Had Rothlisberger lateraled successfully and the lateral resulted in PIT scoring the 2-point conversion, which I admit would have been unlikely, the later JAX field goal would merely have tied the game. Unlikely or not, you never allow yourself to be tackled or knocked out of bounds on a two-point conversion play in the NFL or high school. You must always lateral once it becomes apparent that you will not get into the end zone. In NCAA, that rule does not apply because they allow the defense to run the ball back for a two-point defensive touchdown at that level.

Brian Billick fired
In a newspaper column by Baltimore Sun columnist Mike Preston, Ravens head coach Brian Billick was said to have been fired in part because of his clock management. I was surprised by that because Brian bought my book at the 1998 American Football Quarterly University where he and I both gave clinics. We also talked on the phone and exchanged a number of emails. In one, he said he might have me come to Ravens as a clock-management consultant. He never did.

I never focused on his clock management and recall no reports that it was incorrect. When a coach screws up the clock, I usually hear about it. So I wonder what Preston’s basis was. My book has never been criticized as being wrong, so Preston in essentially accusing Billick as not having applied the book’s advice, in effect. (I have no reason to believe Preston knows anything about my book.) Knowing Brian’s intelligence, approach to the game, and the having discussed my book with him at length, I would be very surprised if he was truly guilty of bad clock management other than the usual reluctance of NFL coaches to use some clock tactics that the public and columnists like Preston might not understand, like my quarterback sweep slide play instead of taking a knee when there is too much time left to take a knee.

Hang-time throwaway just before NFL two-minute warning
My son Dan pointed out to me that a hang-time throw away (deliberate maximum-distance incomplete pass) on a quarterback sweep-slide play that will end after the 2:00 in the NFL would kill more time than taking a knee or the quarterback sweep-slide play because of the flight time of the incomplete pass. As always, the hang-time throwaway pass must not be caught by anyone, but it must also not trigger an intentional grounding penalty.

Deliberate lateral out of bounds in NCAA
In the second editions printed before 6/5/06, I said it was legal to lateral the ball out of bounds to stop the clock if a ball carrier could not run out of bounds. Referee Mike Wise corrects me on that. NCAA Rule 7-2-1 says it is a five-yard penalty and loss of down and Rule 3-4-3 says the clock restarts on the ready-to-play signal. There are still some situations where it would make sense to lateral out of bounds to stop the clock, namely, if you needed the clock stoppage and could afford the five yards and loss of down.

Page 150 of second edition books printed before 8/9/01 says 120 seconds is enough time to run ten stop-the-clock plays. It should say 20 stop-the-clock plays.

Page 153 of books printed 9/1/01 and before says Notre Dame’s Rudy Ruettiger brags that he was the only Notre Dame player ever carried off the field by his teammates. It should say “the last player carried off the field by his teammates.”

Page 59 of books printed before 11/19/01 said it had to be 2:00 and 1 time out left at the time of the first-down snap in the NFL to take a knee. It should have said 1:28.

Page 60 of books printed before 11/19/01 said it had to be 2:00 and 1 time out left at the time of the first-down snap in the NFL to sweep slide. It should have said 1:40. Also, change the down 1 gained end from 2:40 to 1:59.

Clock Management Rule 1.20 (c) ends with the phrase “especially on the first three downs.” Change that to “on the first three downs of a series”

The Jets-Bills game of 12/30/01 seemed to end in a clock-management mess, but I have looked at the play-by-play and see no problem. When they were ahead 14-9, Buffalo tried to punt on 4th & 15 from the Jets 37. That strikes me as a bad idea, although it’s not a clock-management mistake per se. In the event, they fumbled the snap back to the 50 where New York took over on downs with :47 left. With 1st & 10 at the Bills 24, Testaverde spiked the ball to stop the clock at :13. That is correct clock management. Then they completed a pass over the middle to the 17 and had no time outs left. They hustled to snap the ball and did so just before time ran out. Testaverde threw a very inaccurate incomplete fade pass and the game ended.

After the game, the owner and Testaverde implied someone screwed up on the last couple of plays. I don’t know of anyone other than Testaverde who screwed up. He could have thrown to another receiver or thrown more accurately. The fade receiver was covered, but an accurate pass would have at least given the receiver a chance to make a play. The pass Testaverde threw was so high there was no chance to make a play. The Bills special teams screwed up royally on the punt, but the Jets clock management on the last series was OK. Testaverde implied a different play should have been called. He’ll get no support from me. I think a fade pass is as good as any other in that situation. Execute.

Go for it
Economist David Romer of the University of California at Berkeley did a study of 700 NFL games from 1998 to 2000. He found that teams near midfield should go for it on fourth down if they less than five yards to go and that teams inside the opponent’s five-yard line should go for the touchdown on fourth down. The study was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Click on the items below to go to those Web pages.

1997 Football Clock Management News

1998 Football Clock Management News

1999 Football Clock Management News

2000 Football Clock Management News

Jets Ravens 11/14/04 game

An interesting clock-management game I have heard about but not yet researched: 1993 Peach Bowl Clemson over Kentucky