I have always loved football. I have been following it since I was a kid. I continue to follow it despite years in Europe with bad time zone differences. However, the more I have reflected on the experience of a typical NFL game, the more I am starting to believe that removing all clock stoppages incomplete passes, time outs, after scoring, out of bounds could actually be a boost to the game. For the following reasons The now well known statistic that football games typically have only around 10 15 minutes of action For the average game time of 3 hours, this is slightly insulting. Especially, considering there is more than an hour of players standing around and commercials, it does not seem like reducing this time would be that damaging to the strategy that the game is proud of. Without clock stoppage, let's assume no added time for now , there would still be 15 minutes a quarter. The average drive seems to be between 2 4 minutes. That still leaves between 4 5 drives each quarter which seems to me to be plenty. Even if it is less say 2 3 due to the change over of players, chains, etc., this would still up the tension as each team's possessions would be more precious. 4th downs would be more exciting. The punt would be only used in extreme cases near the offense's endzone. Additional to the previous points, the games would be more exciting because 4th downs are statistically better used as ball advancing plays rather than for punts Would strategy really suffer? Maybe slightly. But chess is played at many different speeds and many prefer the pressure of the clock to the perfection of the strategy. Here it is subjective, but I would rather a few more pressure and emotion driven mistakes than perfection beating near perfection. I think that drives a lot of what college football fans love. The advertizing aspect would be tough to overcome and I do not understand all the commercial aspects. But UEFA FIFA etc do not seem to be suffering despite only showing commercials at half time. And perhaps the networks would be thankful for consistent game times. So this theory has been brewing in my head and it is not complete. I would like to see what I am missing. Change my view . EDIT Just to be clear, I am not proposing a soccer rugby situation where there is no huddle. The play clock would remain the same, just the game clock would not stop. There would always be a chance to stop and strategize, just not stop the game clock. EDIT 2 Delta awarded for overestimating the number of possessions feasible or realistic in a game. This would need to be addressed, though I am not convinced that it destroys the idea completely. Also, some good compromises to my more extreme idea were given e.g. eliminating some of the more excessive clock stoppers
the NFL should eliminate all clock stoppage