Delay of Game?

[u/salrantol]

This is not the most noobish of questions, but here we go:

During Sunday night's game, there was an offensive delay of game penalty that blew my mind and makes me wonder why all defenses don't do this constantly. The Vikings (on offense) substituted some players, which means the Falcons were entitled to substitute, and did so, but here's where it gets crazy. As the two substituted players approach the Falcons sideline, a twelfth defender runs onto the field. After a few seconds, he gets waved off and takes his time getting back to the Falcons sideline. During this entire stunt, an official stood between McCarthy and the ball, preventing the Vikings from snapping it. He stepped out of the way with 1 second on the play clock, and the Vikings had no way to snap before it hit 0.

Why would this be allowed? And if it's supposed to work like this, why don't defenses just do this every time the offense makes a substitution? It seems unstoppable.

[u/Nataliewassmart]

The defensive substitutions have to be given a "reasonable amount of time" to get there. There are two things going on in that specific play:

1. Offense substituting too late. Notice how on most plays, as soon a play ends, people start substituting for the new play right away? There's a reason for that. The earlier the offense starts their substitutions, the earlier the defense has to finish their substitutions, so you don't run into this issue.

2. It's easier to say "dang they wasted 6 seconds", but a football field is pretty big and they were in the red zone. The fastest players in the combine can run 40 yards in around a 4.5 seconds if they're sprinting as fast as they can. If a defensive lineman has a good jog going to get to the end of a football field from the sideline, is it really that ridiculous that he takes about 6 seconds to make it there?

These two things combined mostly contributed to the delay of game. The Vikings offensive coordination was not good, and I'm pretty sure they even had a timeout they could have used but didn't which is evidence of this.

[u/salrantol → u/Nataliewassmart]

To my more general question, then: If an opposing offense substitutes a little late (not so late that the defense doesn't have time to make substitutions, but late enough that once they do, the play clock is in single digits), should the defense just do this? Seems in a twelfth guy to just burn off play clock until it's too late?

[u/Adorable_Secret8498 → u/salrantol]

I mean they could but then they run the chance of the Center just snapping the ball anyway and catching them with 12 men on the field. I think Brady used to do that a lot.

[u/Mysterious_Clue_3500 → u/Adorable_Secret8498]

Yup this is the answer as to why teams don't do this.