Random NFL comments/thoughts

[number20]

Wow Russ Francis was killed (plane crash). I remember that guy

[Sports_Freak]

On 10/1/2023 at 12:37 PM, gehringer_2 said:

If it had been the end of an even numbered quarter, I could see being upset, but if they don't snap the ball, the quarter ends, there's no reason to believe they don't go to the other end, run the same play with the same result. The end of the 1st and 3rd aren't possession enders like the end of the half and the game so I don't really see one play being on either side of the quarter break as material to the outcome of the game.

It looked to me like the Lions defenders hesitated, waiting for the whistle. We won so it doesn't really matter but if that play would have cost us the game? Another way the NFL tried to screw Detroit. Play should have been stopped once the clock hit zero. There's really no excuses, the clock hit zero and the ball wasn't snapped. To then say it's not reviewable? Absurd. 

[TP_Fan]

The giants are incredibly incompetent. My word. 

[gehringer_2]

5 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

It looked to me like the Lions defenders hesitated, waiting for the whistle

well, if that's the case, they have no-one but themselves to blame if they let up. The snap could easily have come before the clock ran down, they had to be ready for a play until they heard the whistle.

Edited October 3, 2023 by gehringer_2

[number20]

Damn. Witherspoon is a stud. Wish we could've drafted that guy. Seattle beat us to it

Edited October 3, 2023 by number20

[Jason_R]

I like Brian Branch but that Devon Witherspoon is a player. 

[Sports_Freak]

15 minutes ago, number20 said:

Damn. Witherspoon is a stud. Wish we could've drafted that guy. Seattle beat us to it

 

15 minutes ago, Jason_R said:

I like Brian Branch but that Devon Witherspoon is a player. 

Consider the competition. 

[Jason_R]

13 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

 

Consider the competition. 

This is the NFL. Everyone is getting paid. Other players haven’t had the same impact against the Giants that Witherspoon had last night. He got that dawg in him. Hats off. 

[CMRivdogs]

This has become the best part of the week recaps

 

 

[Sports_Freak]

At the end of this video, it says how the NFL told Campbell a couple of seasons ago that the time clock is subjective. Like time running out is an opinion and not a cold, hard fact.

 

[Sports_Freak]

4 hours ago, Jason_R said:

This is the NFL. Everyone is getting paid. Other players haven’t had the same impact against the Giants that Witherspoon had last night. He got that dawg in him. Hats off. 

He had a really good game. Of course, he was off the board before we drafted. And I'm happy with Branch, so far.

[Tigeraholic1]

[MichiganCardinal]

3 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

He had a really good game. Of course, he was off the board before we drafted. And I'm happy with Branch, so far.

It’s worth mentioning that Witherspoon is also the corner that the Lions burned with a flea flicker in his debut. I’m not willing to award him ROTY yet.

[lordstanley]

 

 

[Sports_Freak]

11 hours ago, MichiganCardinal said:

It’s worth mentioning that Witherspoon is also the corner that the Lions burned with a flea flicker in his debut. I’m not willing to award him ROTY yet.

Young corner backs usually struggle their first season or 2. And rookies never seem to get calls. But yeah, he's very talented.

[RedRamage]

20 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

At the end of this video, it says how the NFL told Campbell a couple of seasons ago that the time clock is subjective. Like time running out is an opinion and not a cold, hard fact.

The difference here is that it wasn't the play clock, it was the game clock. At least according to the rules expert during the broadcast, the game clock is a cold, hard fact. It isn't treated the same way as the play clock. That said, in practice I don't know how it wouldn't be.

My guess is it evolved thusly:
When time the game clock ends, whoever is the keeper of that clock yells time or fires a gun or whatever (heck, this America, I'm sure he fired a gun). As tech advanced and the game clock wasn't an actual stopwatch/clock maned by a person on the sidelines, it became the responsibility of one of the refs keep an eye on the clock when they were getting down to close to the end and stop the game when the 15 minutes were up. This isn't too hard... I mean you only have to watch near the end of a Qtr. When the 0:00 show up, blow the whistle if you don't hear a lot of grunting from the field.

When they started using a play clock I'm sure people said something like: "Wait, now EVERY play we need to watch the clock? How can we do that and do our job of watching for false starts, illegal motions, etc. etc. etc.?"

So they devised a plan: "Okay, we'll put huge count down timers in the endzone. If you see those tick to 00, look down at the ball. Is it snapped? Let the play happen. Is it not snapped? Throw the flag." And thus the "subjectiveness" of the delay of game is born. But this "subjectiveness" was never retroactively applied to the GAME clock so the rules with that are still (or should be) 0:00 - instant end of qtr./half/game.

In practice... is there a specific assignment to a ref to watch the game clock near the end? If not, would they not just effectively act the same way as the play clock? If they notice time up, then check if the play is going, and if not stop play?

[gehringer_2]

3 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

In practice... is there a specific assignment to a ref to watch the game clock near the end? If not, would they not just effectively act the same way as the play clock? If they notice time up, then check if the play is going, and if not stop play?

I thought the official game clock is kept by an official on the field - or at least it once was. That's why the ref often tells the scoreboard operator to reset the clock to whatever?

[RedRamage]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

I thought the official game clock is kept by an official on the field - or at least it once was. That's why the ref often tells the scoreboard operator to reset the clock to whatever?

But does the official time keeper have the power to stop the game? I speculate that originally he probably did but I don't know that the official time keeper has any ability to do that now. Maybe s/he can buzz the official or ref, but I don't think they can actually stop the game.

[gehringer_2]

11 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

But does the official time keeper have the power to stop the game? I speculate that originally he probably did but I don't know that the official time keeper has any ability to do that now. Maybe s/he can buzz the official or ref, but I don't think they can actually stop the game.

IDK, I don't follow football rules issues that closely, but every official on the field has a whistle don't they? You hear the whistle you stop?

Edited October 4, 2023 by gehringer_2

[lordstanley]

22 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

This has become the best part of the week recaps

 

 

I also enjoyed her Lions-Packers game recap, given how she is a Packers fan and her brother with special needs is a Lions fan.

 

 

[1984Echoes]

7 minutes ago, lordstanley said:

I also enjoyed her Lions-Packers game recap, given how she is a Packers fan and her brother with special needs is a Lions fan.

 

 

She is wicked hot...

And she has epic, wicked, snark.

Hilarious.

[1984Echoes]

22 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

This has become the best part of the week recaps

 

 

Wicked hot.

And wicked, wicked, wicked snark.

Hilarious!!!

[RedRamage]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

IDK, I don't follow football rules issues that closely, but every official on the field has a whistle don't they? You hear the whistle you stop?

But the official time keeper isn't on the field, at least I don't think so. Again, this is all a pretty meaningless debate because we don't have all the information. I guess my long winded post above is essentially saying that I think they built in the subjectivity for the PLAY clock understanding that officials can't be looking at the PLAY clock and the play at the same time, but never retroactively added the subjectivity to the GAME clock.

So:
Technically there is no subjectivity in the GAME clock. When it hits zero the period is done.

In practice, though, there is subjectivity in the GAME clock because, just like the play clock, the officials can't be looking at that and the play at the same time. If the official doesn't blow the whistle before the play is snapped, then the period isn't done. (Remember of course that the play just needs to START before 0:00, it could theoretically go on for many seconds later. So the ref can't just blow the whistle when s/he see 0:00 because the play might be in progress.)

[KnoxP]

13 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

So:
Technically there is no subjectivity in the GAME clock. When it hits zero the period is done.

In practice, though, there is subjectivity in the GAME clock because, just like the play clock, the officials can't be looking at that and the play at the same time. If the official doesn't blow the whistle before the play is snapped, then the period isn't done. (Remember of course that the play just needs to START before 0:00, it could theoretically go on for many seconds later. So the ref can't just blow the whistle when s/he see 0:00 because the play might be in progress.)

Technically...that appears to be the case, given the 'expert' opinion heard about it. There must be a responsible ref to do this, and my guess it is NOT the play clock guy, seeing as how many plays can get off in hurry-up mode. 

In practice...ref's got to be 100% committed to making the call-no hesitation. For both game and play clock. "Subjectivity" has no place in either case. See the clock expired, quick look, no snap WHISTLE and FLAG.  Sure there will be close calls and griping.  Removing any delay worst case is snap and whistle occur at same time and if that's true it's late.

In both this GB game and the Balt/Justin Tucker 66y doink game the ref must have been anticipating the snap will occur before the clock expires and when he realizes it has not, that moment of hesitation causes late snaps and no flags. Unless, as many suggest, the refs are attempting to rig a Det. loss.  As convenient as that reasoning is, I don't quite buy it.

Subjectivity gets us Jawann Taylor lining up in the backfield and moving early. 🤬

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, KnoxP said:

In both this GB game and the Balt/Justin Tucker 66y doink game the ref must have been anticipating the snap will occur before the clock expires and when he realizes it has not, that moment of hesitation causes late snaps and no flags. Unless, as many suggest, the refs are attempting to rig a Det. loss.  As convenient as that reasoning is, I don't quite buy it.

and I go back to my original point - I don't see that you can argue it's necessarily favorable to either O or D if the period whistle is late. Why wouldn't the offensive lineman be as likely to let down in anticipation of no play as the D men? You either stay ready to play or you don't. That kind of lapse can happen to any player on either side of the ball. Maybe it happened to the Lions, maybe the execution was good enough the Lions would have given it up on that play if the play had been run 2 minutes earlier in the qtr. The Lions could have as easily given up the yards on the 1st play of the next qtr. I think there is a little bit of fan paranoia that anything that happens out of order has to have been detrimental to my team.