Games will only be two hours?

[MarkNelson]

Vince McMahon stated that NFL games are too long and the XFL games will only be two hours? How can pull this off?

He talked about removing half time, but I doubt that the players and coaches would want that? Half time seems to be necessary. I guess you could cut it in half, but that still doesnt shave off an hour.

You could remove some time-outs. But you will won't save that much time.

The only way may be to have less time on the clock. Ten minute quarters?

[XFL_FAN]

10 minute quarters and a 10 minute halftime instead of 15 minute quarters and halftimes should do the trick.

[MarkNelson]

I wonder how shorter games will affect sponsor revenue.

[Sykotyk]

The NFL has dabbled with picture-in-picture for commercials during brief stoppages. That is one way to speed things up. Narrow down the halftime to a 3-minute stoppage. A 30-second play clock that starts the moment a play ends. Eliminate kickoffs entirely. After a score, the receiving team gets the ball at their own 30.

Speed up penalty calling. There's no reason for the pomp and circumstance of the natural way football handles a penalty. if an official sees a penalty, just throw the flag and mark it off. Delay, off-side, false start, etc shouldn't even need a flag. Just the official announce it as they're moving the ball back and get the clock going.

PI is 15 yards from the LOS. Make holding from LOS to avoid determining WHERE exactly it took place. Eliminate any holding call on holds lasting 'less than a second'. Extra points are 30-second play clock after TD is scored. Keep OOB a clock stoppage with the ball being spotted, but make incompletes a 30-second clock immediately after incomplete. This also plays against a team throwing deep having to run back to setup another play. Brings some intrigue to it rather than officials loafing it to spot the ball for the next play and letting all the receivers get a breather.

I still think '2 hours' is too little. I think fitting it into a 2:30 window is more likely with a few minute pregame discussion/coin-flip, and a few minutes to round up the game. Maybe 2:15 of elapsed time from first play to final whistle.

Also, maybe bring in a couple CFL rules:

Punt Return Halo: The return team has a 5-yard halo around the ball until it rolls dead OR they touch/recover/catch it. Though eliminate the gunner position that CFL has for those lining up behind the punter bypassing the halo rule. This ups the safety, but with the halo makes deep punts a bit more interesting of a proposition for kickers.

Quarter can't end unless during a play: Basically, if the clock is running after a play, even when it reaches 0:00 there's still one more play left. No pointless rushing to snap a ball before the arbitrary controls of a clock operator, referee spotting the ball, defensive team getting onside, etc. If the last play ended with 0:05 left, you know you still have one more snap. Clock hits 0:00 DURING a play, and that play is the last of the quarter. Also plays into some hail mary plans if you can get a short pass down the middle with a second or two left to run another play.

[MarkNelson]

There has to be savings for the time after the two-minute warning. In the CFL they have a three-minute warning and the last three minutes of a CFL game usually go twice as fast as the last two minutes of a NFL game.

[Sykotyk]

There has to be savings for the time after the two-minute warning. In the CFL they have a three-minute warning and the last three minutes of a CFL game usually go twice as fast as the last two minutes of a NFL game.

CFL's playclock is much faster overall than NFL. The 40-second clock has to go.

[Joker]

Get rid of the 40-sec clock and the game will speed up. Seems like a no-brainer to me!

[MarkNelson]

Certainly lessons could be learned from the CFL, which seems to be a much faster game.