![]() The clock only restarts once the offensive team snaps to begin the next play. Unlike after a run that goes out of bounds, however, the clock doesn’t simply automatically restart once the ball is set. Harking back to the origins of the game once again, the idea was to stop the clock when a forward pass fell incomplete in order to allow the referee the time to reset the ball on the field. The domination of the forward pass in the modern game has altered the state of clock management drastically. Tweaking the rules, seemingly the NFL’s greatest delight, has led to a separate set of rules being used for the final two minutes of the first half and the final five minutes of the second half, where the clock restarts on the snap of the ball for the next play. It is only if the ball goes out of bounds that the clock stops, and even then only long enough to allow the referee to reset the ball on the field before starting the clock again. Even when an offense elects to huddle rather than just go straight to the line of scrimmage, the clock runs. The rules surrounding the clock as it pertains to the running game give a nod to this era. Originating in rugby, early football was primarily a running game where the ball was almost always in play. In the early days of the game, this was simple and direct. In its basic form, the idea is simple any time the ball is in play, the clock counts down from 15 minutes to zero. At the change of each quarter, the teams face the opposite direction on the field and at the end of the second quarter, there is a 15 minute half time break. The game is 60 minutes long, consisting of four 15 minute quarters. Why is it always stopping?” It is like a broken record and over the years of explaining and re-explaining, I thought that perhaps it was time that I should get a proper handle on the clock situation in the NFL. They all revolve around two things, the pads and the clock.Įuropeans, and indeed anyone from outside of North America, will parrot the same words when they are first exposed to American football. But there are a few common questions that, as an American, I have heard and answered a million times. Tens of thousands of European fans, possibly even hundreds of thousands across the entire continent, are every bit as devoted to the game as anyone in Green Bay or Dallas would ever be. ![]() ![]() And if it weren’t for my love of baseball and the NFL, I might agree with her.īut with the NFL now playing four regular season games per season in London, and the ever-present rumors that an expansion team will be located there in the not-too-distant future, surely Europe and the NFL are not mutually exclusive, you say. My mother claims that I am now more European than American. All of my adult experiences, paying into a pension, getting a mortgage, having children, have been through the lens of Europe. Although I grew up in south Louisiana (New Orleans Saints represent!), and went to college in Georgia, I married a Spanish girl and made my home on the other side of the pond. I have lived more than half of my life in Europe.
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