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[Maxie the Taxi]

Typically, a team may call a time out up until the snap of the ball--assuming the official recognizes the request. Often a play is blown dead when an official recognizes that the request for a time-out came before the snap. (I remember seeing a game in which the offense had a touchdown called back because the offensive HC asked for a time-out just before the snap.) I can't imagine any other way to operate than using the snap as the demarcation between "in time" or "too late" to call a time-out.

Do you want all the rules regarding calling a time-out changed? Or would there be a separate set of rules designed to prevent the "icing" time-out prior to a field goal?

If a placekicker misses a field goal after having been "iced" I lay that problem on the kicking team, not on the opponent. The tactic is well-known and responding to it is part of the kicking team's responsibility.

I see your point but I don't think very many think of it as a terribly underhanded trick.

Basketball fans wave crazy crap in front of opposing players when they shoot free throws. Should we put a stop to that? You could try, but it would be a ridiculous rule to enforce. "Technical foul on the fan in the red for yelling 'Miss it!'"

What if a football stadium pumped in noise? Oh, wait, they've already lost draft picks for that.

I just think that any rule establishing an anti-freeze time-out protocol would be thought of as too much meddling for too little result. And now I feel like I should get off the barstool, take a leak, and change the subject when I get back.

I know you're right...but it still feels wrong.

[Guiness]

I know you're right...but it still feels wrong.

I'll add stupid and pointless.

[pbmax]

What about that time-out called by the Denver bench a moment before the Carolina kicker made the (apparent) winning FG? Anyone else think that's bush league and ought to be outlawed?

It is bush league. But while its legal, you almost have to do it.

EDIT: And swede might be right, very hard to stop.

However, I think they should do away with calling timeouts from sideline.

[Maxie the Taxi]

It is bush league. But while its legal, you almost have to do it.

EDIT: And swede might be right, very hard to stop.

However, I think they should do away with calling timeouts from sideline.

Agreed. Correct me if I'm wrong but back in the day I don't think they could call time-outs from the sideline. I think only certain, designated players could call for a TO.

[pbmax]

Agreed. Correct me if I'm wrong but back in the day I don't think they could call time-outs from the sideline. I think only certain, designated players could call for a TO.

Relatively recent development. I think any player on the field has been able to call them for a long time.

[Maxie the Taxi]

Relatively recent development. I think any player on the field has been able to call them for a long time.

I found an interesting article on the web about this: http://law.scu.edu/sports-law/icing-...t-of-the-game/

To make our football matter more interesting, two versions of kicker-icing exist. The first, which we’ve discussed thus far, in which the opposing coach calls a timeout once he recognizes the other team will attempt a field goal. But the second version became popular in 2006 when the timeout-rule changed, allowing coaches to call timeouts instead of just the players. In a Week Two game of the 2007 season, Denver coach Mike Shanahan stood next to the sideline official and called “timeout” immediately prior to the snap of a late field goal attempt by Raiders’ Sebastian Janikowski. Not having time to realize a timeout was called, the Raiders ran the play and Janikowski made what would have been the game-winning field goal. Forced to cease celebrating and kick again, following the timeout, Janikoswki’s kick ricocheted off an upright and Denver went on to win. The following week, Raiders’ coach Lane Kiffin utilized the exact same ploy in a game they too ended up winning. And then two weeks later, Bills coach Dick Jauron jumped on the “everybody does it” bandwagon.

The head of NFL officiating at the time, Mike Pereira, commented on coaches using timeouts in this last-second icing manner, “I don’t think any of us projected it would be used this way. It just doesn’t seem right [italics mine].” And NFL Rules Commission member John Mara added, “We have other sportsmanship issues we have had to deal with—taunting, excessive celebrations—and this just adds a whole other level to it.” This is exactly the question, to use the words of the experts: is it a sportsmanship issue and is it right?

Interestingly, Mara included icing along with other practices which were, at the time, not against the rules yet clearly unsportsmanlike. Taunting and excessive celebration were once permitted. Now they aren’t. Most agree that taunting a competitor is unsportsmanlike and unethical: You can’t behave ethically while simultaneously mocking someone, even if no rules exist to permit it.

The “last-second timeout” violates many other precedents concerning the ethics of sport. The mere fact that it results in a kicker having to perform the same task twice seems argument enough. This form of timeout also allows the coach to participate in the game more as a player: he actively inserts himself into the play in a way that supersedes his intended involvement. Additionally in this case, the coach doesn’t perform a particular play or skill in football but, instead, performs football’s equivalent of asking a tennis player if he inhales while serving, and then forces him to re-hit a successful serve he’s already made.

Were the league interested in preventing this, they could include it as a form of emotional “taunting.” The only intent, in these situations, is to fluster the athlete mentally thus negatively affecting his performance. As I write this, I realize my own earlier example as a coach “icing” the shooter was actually a form of taunting, just disguised very well.

Much of this evaluation hinges on the relationship of moral judgments and rules in sport. Is a particular action first considered unethical and only then outlawed by the rules (i.e. taunting)? Or is the action against the rules and only then, by definition, unethical (i.e. soccer’s hand ball)? The answer is a blend of the two. To pick an obvious example, striking someone in the face with a fist in a soccer game is not unethical simply because it’s prohibited by the rules, it’s unethical regardless of the rules. Likewise taunting: mocking someone was unethical behavior in football before the league enacted a rule prohibiting it. In these cases, the moral evaluation comes first, then the rule reflects the evaluation.

But these two sorts of examples are true outside the context of sport: you don’t harm others—physically or emotionally.2 The timeout issue is sport-specific: the rules of the particular sport determine what participants may and may not do. Intentionally hitting a ball with one’s hand in a soccer match is unethical only because of a rule prohibiting it. Without soccer’s rules, it’s just a bunch of people on a grassy field with a ball and a couple of rectangular objects.

This is, in part, what’s going on here as officials come to view this as a “sportsmanship issue.” “Freezing the Kicker” is already listed as a violation in the NFL Rulebook under Section 3: “Unsportsmanlike Conduct.” Though, currently, the violation occurs only when a team calls a second consecutive timeout to freeze the kicker: this, the league considers “unsportsmanlike.”

It would be easy to prevent this type of timeout the first time around as well. For example, enact a rule like, “Following the two-minute warning, no timeouts allowed with fewer than 5 seconds on the play clock,” or, “No timeout by the opposing coach 30 seconds prior to a team’s kicking a field goal in the final two minutes.”

In the absence of harming an opponent, the rules determine the ethics of a game. Thus, regarding our timeout example here, the rules of the game are all we have to instruct us as to how we ought to act within such an institution. So, until the league changes the rule, coaches are free to use their timeouts as they please, even if they choose to do so ineffectively. Though I’ll be hoping the rule makers outlaw the last-second version of kicker icing, mostly because it just doesn’t seem “right” nor “sportsmanlike,” to quote the rule makers back to themselves.

[Patler]

Relatively recent development. I think any player on the field has been able to call them for a long time.

I guess that depends on your definition of "long", because I believe I recall when only designated players could call time out. You would see linemen and such being ignored when indicating a time out while the QB frantically tried to get the attention of an official at the end of a play.

Or was it that the request had to be made to only certain officials, not just any official????

[Pugger]

How in the fuck was that not called? The Marshall headhunting that is.

Marshall looked like that creep on the Redskins there. He was spearing with his helmet with his arms just hanging there and the stupid zebra just stands there and watches! The league says they are looking out for player safety but that is BS.

[Guiness]

Marshall looked like that creep on the Redskins there. He was spearing with his helmet with his arms just hanging there and the stupid zebra just stands there and watches! The league says they are looking out for player safety but that is BS.

League has now announced it was a missed call. He'll get fined, but who really cares about that? Certainly not the team, who won the game. Should be suspended.

[pbmax]

They treat Newton like he is a runner at all times even when he is just moving in the pocket. I read that in the four disputed cases, he threw each time. I only remember, three of those distinctly, but I can see this being an issue.

[Guiness]

They treat Newton like he is a runner at all times even when he is just moving in the pocket. I read that in the four disputed cases, he threw each time. I only remember, three of those distinctly, but I can see this being an issue.

I can see where that would be part of the problem, and he's so big that the defenders will get plowed over if they don't fully commit to the tackle.

[deake]

How many times has he shrugged off a hit and went on to throw a pass, where another qb would have been down. They were just making sure that didn't happen. Perhaps a quicker whistle, a quicker in the grasp in his case would eliminate the need to have two or three guys hit him. I

[Harlan Huckleby]

The refs clearly treat Cam like a big moose who can take it. That's wrong. The sack by Von Miller where he dove into Newton's lower legs was also illegal. Cam Newton is so big and tough, and he delivers so many hits himself throughout the game, that it changes the bias of the refs. Players could never rough-up Rodgers or Brady like that.

[pbmax]

How about no shots to the head? And no launching.

To make it easier on the D, I'll give them back the glancing arm shots to the head while wrapping up the QB.

[red]

its not nfl football, but can i go ahead and draft lamar jackson from louisville to be my FF QB either next season or in 2018?

the guy is insane