NFL Must Nix the Timeout Before the Field Goal Trick

Dallas Cowboys kicker Nick Folk booted a game-winning field goal on Monday night. Then he did it again.

Folk's first kick caused his teammates to celebrate and Buffalo Bills fans to head for the exits, but there was just one problem: It didn't count. Bills coach Dick Jauron had called timeout an instant before the ball was snapped, and the referee waved off the play. Once everyone settled down, the players lined back up, Folk nailed the 53-yard kick again, and this time the Cowboys really could celebrate a 25–24 victory, and Bills fans really could head home.

It was a thrilling ending to one of the most exciting games of this NFL season, but it was an ending that was tarnished by the uncertainty surrounding the game-winning kick. And it was far from the first football game this year to have an ending tarnished by a coach affecting a game-winning field goal attempt from the sidelines.

In the second week of the season, the Oakland Raiders appeared to have defeated the Denver Broncos with an overtime field goal, but it turned out that Broncos coach Mike Shanahan had called timeout an instant before the ball was snapped. The Raiders had to try again, they missed, and the Broncos won. The following week the Raiders turned the trick on the Cleveland Browns, calling timeout to negate an apparent game-winning Cleveland field goal, and then blocking the ensuing kick, the one that actually counted.

The tactic was also employed in one of the biggest college football games this season: Auburn kicker Wes Byrum appeared to have hit a game-winning field goal against the Florida Gators last month, only to look over at the referee and see him signal that Florida coach Urban Meyer had called timeout. After waiting a minute, Byrum kicked again, and split the uprights.

Whether it works, as it did for the Broncos and the Raiders, or fails, as it did for the Bills and Florida, calling last-second timeouts feels like a cheap way for a coach to interfere with the game, and it frustrates the fans, who are left wondering whether the game-winning field goal attempt they're watching is real.

That's why a rule change is needed to eliminate the practice.

The simplest way to ensure that game-winning field goal attempts aren't tarnished would be a rule stating that any time a team lines up in a field goal formation, the opposing team may not call timeout after the play clock reaches 10 seconds. Such a rule change would not eliminate the tactic of icing the kicker — teams could still call timeout — but it would allow the kicker, his teammates, and the fans to know for sure that any field goal attempt that began after the clock struck 10 would count.

That would make the rule more in line with the rules of basketball. A basketball team can call a timeout before an opposing player tries a game-winning free throw, but the timeout must be called prior to the referee handing the ball to the shooter.

The NFL's competition committee will probably discuss such a rule change in March, but while most fans would like it, it probably won't happen. Implementing the rule would require the approval of a three-fourths majority of NFL teams, meaning it would take 24 of the 32 teams voting "yes" for it to pass. NFL coaches are micromanagers, and most of them like having this tactic at their disposal. It's easy to envision a scenario in which at least nine teams would vote "no" on such a proposal.

Some coaches who oppose a rule change would note that there's no guarantee that calling a timeout before a field goal attempt will work. Some kickers have actually said they would like to have a coach call a timeout just before the ball is snapped, because the tactic essentially gives a kicker a free practice kick. Although it hasn't happened yet this season, it's entirely possible that at some point, the timeout strategy will backfire: A coach could call timeout just before the opposing kicker misses his field-goal attempt, and then watch in horror as the kicker makes the field goal on his second chance.

But more often than not, icing the kicker works. In a 2004 article in the academic journal Chance, two statisticians studied every field goal attempt from the 2002 and 2003 NFL seasons, and isolated all the "pressure" kicks — those that would tie the game or give the team a lead within the final three minutes of the game. The statisticians found that kickers were more likely to miss those pressure kicks if the opposing team had called a timeout beforehand.

There's nothing inherently wrong with icing the kicker, a practice that has been employed, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, in many of the biggest games in NFL history. But it's usually been done simply to give the kicker more time to stew over the task ahead of him, as it was when the Giants called timeout before Bills kicker Scott Norwood missed a field goal at the end of Super Bowl XXV.

Calling timeout just as the ball is about to be snapped is a different matter.

For fans, the end of a game becomes less fun if they don't know whether the field goal they're watching is real, or whether a coach on the sideline has rendered it moot. The NFL needs to stop forcing kickers to make two game-winning field goals.

Mr. Smith is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.