The NFL tweaked their kicking ball procedures at the end of a half in wake of the confusion during the closing seconds of the first half of Monday’s Washington-Pittsburgh game.
Washington Football Team quarterback Alex Smith was sacked on a third down play with 23 seconds remaining and Washington having no timeouts. As the game clock continued running, Smith took the football with him to the sidelines in an attempt to speed up the process of officials placing the “K-ball” (kicking ball) on the field for a 49-yard field goal attempt for Dustin Hopkins.
However, umpire Roy Ellison did not get the K-ball quickly enough. Thus, he stopped the clock for an administrative issue with eight seconds remaining. That allowed Washington to set up for the field goal, which Hopkins made. Without the clock stoppage it would have been difficult for Washington to set up and snap the field goal attempt before the clock expired.
Officials typically use the scrimmage ball from the previous down in running clock situations at the end of halves. Yet, since Smith ran off with the ball, Ellison called for the clock stoppage.
Ellison erred in judgement. Because Washington caused the delay with Smith running off wit the ball, the clock should have continued to run, NBC Sports rules analyst Terry McAulay tweeted after the error Monday night.
According to Football Zebras, the league sent out a training video outlining changes in the procedures this week to prevent the error from happening again in the future.
The league instructed officials to spot the scrimmage ball from the previous down in a running-clock situation towards the end of a half. Officials are to forgo the K-ball with a running clock at 20 seconds or less. The previous time guideline was for “approximately 10” seconds remaining.
Additionally, the referee is now the sole official responsible for determining an administrative stoppage. However, teams will be informed of the 20-second benchmark and no administrative stoppage will be allowed in such situation.
