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Marv Levy
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From boredom to tedium and back again with side trips to ennui. The words are stolen
from the opening paragraph of the World War II novel "Mr. Roberts," but they
have current applications.
To politics in a country that can send men to the moon but cannot get a presidential
election right. To football, the best of games, only they should not have the same
approximate length as congressional filibusters or your mother-in-law’s last visit.
Permit me to rotate my arm in the gesture officials use when they are signaling for the
clock to continue running. Enough of these marathons. They can be tiresome, like the
recent World Series, which was played at a snail’s pace while much of American slept.
Do this: Keep the clock running when passes are incomplete. Give football the pace
society prefers in this go-go age. Make it brisk, make it a "now" thing and not
a soporific, which it is becoming with all the interruptions it is experiencing.
This space is given over to the professional game, but the college game is most in need
of being sped up. In college, they stop the clock after first downs, as well as after
incompletions, and that makes the action just a small part of an afternoon.
An example: the recent Ohio State-Michigan game (Wolverines 38, Buckeyes 26), which was
no more offensively oriented than many others.
Between them, the teams converted 38 first downs. That’s 38 time stoppages.
Michigan had 11 passes that were either not completed or were intercepted, and Ohio State
had 27. That’s another 38 time stoppages for a total of 76.
The first half took an hour and 40 minutes to play.
This business about stopping the clock following incompletions dates to a time when a
team that threw as many as 10 passes was considered daring. But the game has changed. On a
recent weekend, Texas Tech delivered 62 passes, Oklahoma 38, Oregon 48, Florida 46,
Florida State 44, UTEP 47, Clemson 30 and Maryland 48.
The NFL, which doesn’t stop the clock after first downs, also has the
rushing/passing ratio more in the proportion that Walter Camp intended, but its games tend
to be too long as well. Witness the Jets’ 40-37 overtime conquest of the Dolphins,
which lingered for four hours and 10 minutes. The longest game of the regular season in
regulation playing time, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, was a 28-20 Miami conquest
of Green Bay, which used up three hours and 53 minutes.
Consider this: A time stoppage is a reward for the offense, which then has more time to
plan its next thrust. An incompletion is a failure. So why should the offense be rewarded
for failure? It should not.
The most exciting offense of my time tagging around the NFL was the no-huddle scheme
the Buffalo Bills orchestrated under Marv Levy with QB Jim Kelly calling his own plays.
Pell-mell stuff, that. I don’t think many people were going to the restrooms when the
Bills were orchestrating their hurry-up tactics.
I thought Levy’s approach would revolutionize the game and make the NFL even more
appealing. Sadly, Levy got away from it. He was losing as much as he was gaining by
eliminating huddling, he decided. A pity.
While I’m caviling, I also would like to cry out against the notion, supported by
the rules, that the ground cannot cause a fumble. Why not? The ground is part of the game,
is it not? A player who has the football during a play should be required to have it at
the play’s end.
In baseball, a catch is not viewed as complete until the player removes the ball from
his glove. The same thinking should apply in football.
More controversies have their source in whether the ground caused a fumble than in any
other matter. Requiring people with the ball to retain possession of it, ground or no
ground, would eliminated this.
Sure, there would be more turnovers, but turnovers are what makes the game exciting.
Back to keeping the clock running following incompletions. Making this change would
represent a major move, but professional football never has been loath to change its
rules. Passing was not permitted in the game until 1906 (pre-NFL), and the offense relied
exclusively on power running and kicking. The touchdown and the field goal both counted
for five points, and the very thick, round ball was not designed for passing, lending
itself to drop-kicking.
All players went 60 minutes or were carried off the field, which was 110 yards long.
The offense had three downs in which to gain five yards for a first down. The point after
touchdown was attempted from the five-yard line directly opposite from where the touchdown
was scored. If this angle was too acute, the team could punt the ball out and kick from
where the punt was caught.
Situational substitution currently is the vogue, conversions have become almost
automatic and the football is shaped like a projectile. It flies straight and true, which
is fine. Passing has taken the game out of its brutish phase and given it an artistry it
did not possess when sturdy lads from the mill towns were playing it mostly for the love
of it.
Value the pass. Just keep the clock running after incompletions. Pace. The game needs
it.
One note concerning elections. They have had only a small bearing on the course of
events in the NFL. I think of the 22 ballots the league had to take before electing Pete
Rozelle as commissioner when one ballot should have been sufficient, and the late Jim
Finks being denied the commissionership when he would have served superbly. Yes, Super
Bowl sites are selected through elections, but they never are adversarial, one guy against
another.
Good thing. Wouldn’t want to inspire one of those tiresome recounts.
Jerry Magee has covered pro football for the San Diego Union-Tribune since 1961 and for
PFW since its inception in 1967 |
