I'm pretty sure, without looking it up, that it was implemented when the referees kept time on stop watches and the players and coaches didn't have a reference for time but does it serve any purpose now days other than an extra timeout? If they invented football today with our current technology, I don't think it would be in the rules.
LOL, true. I'm just saying that, although it won't go away at this point, it's an outdated facet to the game, kinda like the 8 second/10 second rule in basketball, a rule that was a part of the game before the shot clock which gives you all the incentive you need to get across the line in a timely manner anyways. That and the 5 seconds closely guarded rule in college.
I don't think it's an oudated rule in basketball. During late game situations, you can play a full court press to force a turnover if you can't advance the ball. I think the 24 second rule came before the 8/10 second rule. It doesn't make sense for them to say, okay, you have 10 seconds to cross the line, after that, pass the ball around because there is no shot clock.
You do know they reduced the NBA half court rule from 10 seconds to 8 seconds in 2002 because teams were still taking too damn long to bring the ball up, right?
Yeah, because it's in the rules. If it weren't in the rules, there'd be no need to press unless down big in the closing minutes/seconds. And if you come into the front court and then try to go into the back court, you're only hurting yourself because the shot clock is continuing to tick. Actually, in the old days before the shot clock, it was possible for teams to get a big lead and, in theory, just play keep away by passing the ball all around the court instead of trying to score a basket for the rest for the game. I'm going to do the actual research in a minute instead of making the assumption but the five second rule in college made sense without the shot clock because it forced the offense to have to move the ball around instead of playing stall ball because there was no incentive to shoot if they were ahead and thus it forces the offense to have to move the ball around which could lead to turnovers, force them to be tempted to come across an easy shot or forfeit the ball/call time-out if they get trapped. Throw in the 10 second rule, which forces you to get it in the front court and the backcourt violation, which means (again, without a shot clock) you can't throw the ball back and try to stall, then you can see that it had a way of eliminating stall ball and more importantly increase offensive scoring. Long story short, it seems it stopped teams from playing stall ball and along with the backcourt violation and 5 second rule, encouraged the offense to try and score more. But now it can be argued that it's outdated because the shot clock gives you ample incentive to shot the ball.
The point of both rules is to make the ends of games more interesting - same reason college and the NFL both have the running clock rules change in the last 5 minutes of the game. Creating more possibilities for turnovers (in the NBA) and giving more time for comebacks (in the NFL) opens doors for more comebacks, which makes games more interesting and improves ratings.
Apparently it is, just as I assumed, though I didn't think most stadiums actually had an actual clock in the older days: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/41618#ixzz283xHPqgP "The custom of giving teams a two-minute warning dates all the way back to the NFL’s first years. In those days, fans and coaches couldn’t just take a look at the stadium clock to see how much time remained in the half. The official game clock resided in the pocket or on the wrist of one of the officials, and the stadium’s clock was just a rough estimate of how much time remained in the game. Thus, the NFL instituted a two-minute warning where the referee would stop the clock and let both teams know exactly how much time remained in the game. Obviously, that sort of “warning” is no longer necessary..."
Yep and that's even pointed out on the link in that article. I know it's not going anywhere but it is outdated.
No - you're assuming the original purpose behind instituting it is still the reason it exists today. It's not outdated because it exists today for different reasons. Manual transmission in cars originally existed because automatic hadn't been invented. But it's not outdated today - now it exists for other reasons (performance, enjoyment, etc).
No, I know why it exist now, because the players, coaches and TV executives want it due to fatigue, strategy purposes and ad revenue. But my assumption that it originally stemmed from referees being the actual on the field timekeepers that gave each coaches a "warning" that there was only two minutes left was correct.
I like it. Its like "hey teams, there's only 2 minutes left....get your **** together. __________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __________________ Roll Tide
