By Patrick F. Cannon
If you watch football at the professional or major college levels, you are aware that the length of a game is often extended by penalties and disputes over them. The broadcast teams that describe the action almost always have a rules “expert” on call to unravel the intricacies of a particular situation.
When I played midget and high school football in the 1950s, most of the penalties called now didn’t exist. There was one called “unnecessary roughness,” but not one called “roughing the passer.” The former covered all instances of using extraordinary methods (punching, clawing, strangling, etc.) in your dealings with the fellows on the other team. The first penalty ever called on me was for using most of these techniques to get to a quarterback who was taking his own sweet time deciding where to throw a pass. As I recall, I never actually got to him, being too busy abusing his blockers. The penalty was 15 yards, and my coach counseled me to use more forbearance in the future.
In those days, there was no such thing as “roughing the passer.” If you bumped into, tackled or shoved him after the ball was thrown, it was rarely called, one reason being that it was rare for the team to pass more than 10 times during the usual game. While the cheerleaders thought more highly of him than they did of grunts like me, the quarterback wasn’t coddled like a rare flower.
A penalty for being “offside” was common. I imagine that “encroachment” is just another way of saying the same thing, but a bit fancier. There was no play clock to speed things up because I don’t recall slowing things down on a regular basis. If you did dawdle, the referee would bark at you to “speed up a bit gentleman,” or was it in saltier language?
By the way, the refs’ decisions were final. This didn’t stop the coaches from complaining loudly and at length, but to no avail. The only red handkerchief he could use was to blow his nose. How could you have a video replay when video hadn’t been invented?
I don’t recall many holding penalties. As I’ve suggested, the forward pass was not as common in my day, so most blocking was designed to shove the defenders out of the way to create holes for the running back, not to prevent them from getting to the quarterback. Another reason for fewer penalties was there were fewer officials. I think we may have had four or five; now, in the NFL and major colleges there are eight on the field and a few in the booth.
“Face mask” penalties are common now, but in my day the face was just as vulnerable as the rest of the body. You could always tell a lineman of extensive experience by the condition of his nose. Various other offenses were often committed out of the ref’s views, including the occasional bending of a finger or two. Flattened noses and gnarled fingers were both badges of honor for the interior linemen.
Strangely, the actual official time of the game hasn’t changed. There are still four quarters of 15 minutes each, or one hour of actual play. As late as the 1980s, the average length of a pro football game was 2.5 hours; now, it’s about 3.1 hours. In my high school days, the band would strut its stuff during about a 20-minute halftime. The evening’s festivities (we played on Friday nights) would take no longer than two hours.
Our games were broadcast on the local radio station. I’m sure they mentioned the sponsors when they could, but the station and its sponsors didn’t control the game. Today, the average NFL game includes 50 minutes of commercials. While this is annoying enough for the fans at home, imagine watching the game in an open stadium in the dead of winter? Nevertheless, football has become the national passion, eclipsing that old national pastime, baseball, whose average game takes only about 2.5 hours. Maybe they should do away with the pitch clock to give fans more for their money.
Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon
cannonnadedotcom 
As a “yout” I lacked sufficient bulk for football, and height for basketball, so my sport of choice was baseball, which I played at all positions except catcher. I even hit a grand slam once, sliding into home under the catcher’s tag to the joyous celebrations of my team.
Baseball rules can be arcane, but basically it’s safe/out, ball/strike, fair/foul. At least it was back then, before the reign of Manfred the Meek and the monetization of every element of the game. The passing of Bill Veeck marked the end of baseball as America’s favorite pastime.
The NFL has likewise followed the money, but has been more successful thanks, I suspect, to the popularity of high school and college games. But where money goes, rules follow to resolve inevitable disputes.
Someone once described football as moments of violence (mostly black on black now) interrupted by committee meetings. To this one could add judicial rulings. Football teams are not so much sports organizations as corporate entities operating as franchises. They have developed their own legal system and courts of justice.
Money can be a good thing. In football it has helped the careers of players by protecting them with rules to prevent serious injuries, especially at key positions like QB. on which the franchise critically depends.
The rules also protect gamblers, particularly those with the largest stakes. Small bettors might curse their luck when they lose, but the big fish get very unhappy when things don’t go as planned.
I don’t have the endurance or the insomnia to watch entire NFL games. They are much too long, and the commercial jabbar and other filler are soul crushing.
One study I saw reported that NFL games typically last 3 hours and 10 minutes, of which only 5.79%, or eleven minutes, is live action. In that span, viewers are deluged with an estimated 150 30-second commercials.
Even comatose baseball games do better, with 10.21% of the time devoted to actual play.
Oddly, the sport that provides the most action per game for the sports fan is soccer, 50.09%, and commercials are few and far between. The trouble is, except for rare scoring moments, the game is the most tedious known to man, a slow-motion race against the clock. The “beautiful” game? Blame the beholder.
IU goes against OSU on Saturday. I will be following intently every minute of it, even the commercials, as if the fate of the world depended on the outcome, which it does.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Soccer is now growing here. While injuries can happen, they don’t seem catastrophic! Parents therefore are favoring it for their kiddies. A Chicago billionaire, Joe Mansueto, is building a new stadium with his own money for the Chicago Fire, who now average about 25,000 per game. I too will cheer on Indiana! Who would have expected this?
LikeLike
Soccer has been growing for the past 50 years, especially in cities with major immigration like Chicago. And it is excellent exercise for youngsters. IU has a top collegiate soccer program with eight national championships (few know this), more than any other school since 1973. But it’s an imported sport, the best players are foreign, and the game lacks the variety of measurements of individual achievement (RBIs, HRs, TDs, etc., etc.) that the most popular US sports have. Still, it is undoubtedly growing as part of American sports entertainment, and the US will host the World Cup next year. At least it offers more action uninterrupted by commercials, though that could be a problem for potential sponsors, especially smaller ones.
LikeLike