The debate on "kicker-icing" seems to be reignited, and most people seem to think it's an awkward and undesirable situation at best but there also seems to be no consensus on how to fix it. Here's mine, but I'm not beholden to it and want to hear alternatives and critiques. Let's come up with a BFTB consensus and submit it to the competition committee, who will be sure to listen to it.
On kick attempts (any play where the kicker is on the field and players are aligned in kick formation), the field judge or side judge (whichever one it is that's along the opposing team's sideline) will provide a hand signal with 5 seconds left on the play clock. After that signal is provided, a timeout by the opposing team results in a 5-yard penalty. To me, this eliminates the "icing" timeout by allowing the kicking team to just wait until the 5-second mark to snap and kick, but also allows the opposing team to take essentially any other legitimate timeout needed or incur a penalty for the late timeout that I'm trying to eliminate. Option B for me would be no penalty, but a strict 5-second moratorium on timeouts.
Is it too simple? Am I missing something? Who loves/hates/doesn't care about the whole thing?


There are 6 Comments. Load Now.
Shortcuts to mastering the comment thread. Use wisely.
C - Next Comment
X - Mark as Read
R - Reply
Z - Mark Read & Next
Shift + C - Previous
Shift + A - Mark All Read
Comment Settings
Live comment alert: Hide it!
Comments for this post are closed.