35 Second Play Clock

[bomb squad]

Well, we were able to see several games in the pre-season of this in action. The most telling one, the live game many of us saw at the stadium, where we were able to see how it all operated.   

To me it seemed that, in general, the offences had more time to work with than in the old system. If I had to put a quantity to that, I would say at least 5 seconds. The intent, of course, was not to give the offences more time, or slow the "feel" of the game down. But that's the way it felt to me. In general, the offences operated at the same pace as before, but the "urgency" didn't seem to be there. There was often 8+ seconds left when they snapped the ball. In games where a team has a substantial lead in the second half, they may choose to use those seconds. That's not good.

Now, part of that was the delay in starting the clock. That was usually about 2 secs. That's an easy fix. Start it when the whistle ends the previous play.

I'd like to hear other's thoughts and take on it. Am I out to lunch on what I "felt"? Too early to tell? We can always update this as the season progresses. And let's just try to keep it about the play clock only. Please and thank you.

[Jesse]

It's hard to say without a few regular season games. Maybe I'll notice the difference more in a regular TSN broadcast.

Apparently the clock moves back and forth a bit. It's still 20 seconds after timeouts and penalties, etc.

I saw one guy on reddit who claims to have counted plays and says were losing 20+ plays a game in the preseason compared to a random sampling of regular season games from last year. Approximately 110 to 130.So there's also that to consider.

I will say this though - as someone who is not a fan of the field changes and am bitterly opposed to all things Stew due to that fact - there have been many games in the past where I have been frustrated with the refs not placing the ball and moving onto the next play in a timely fashion, especially when the offence is moving. In an ideal world, this helps that. Of course, in the CFL, the refs will probably still do what they want.