Dolphins Submit Rule Proposal to Eliminate Loophole Used by Patriots, Titans Last Season

Last season, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick exploited yet another loophole in the NFL rulebook.

It was in October during a 33-0 blowout victory over the New York Jets that Belichick, with 10 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter, decided to intentionally take a delay of game penalty on 4th-and-2, which the Jets declined. The Patriots then intentionally took a false start penalty, which was again declined by New York, before deciding to punt the ball. Doing such ran over a minute off the clock because the clock was running at the time of the first penalty. It also forced a smile onto Belichick's face.

When you think about the joke you're going to tell at the party later pic.twitter.com/hKeMwx27PE
— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) October 22, 2019

After the game, Belichick was asked if there was "gamesmanship" involved with attempting to run the clock out as much as he could at that point in the game.

“No, it was just the way the rules are set up,” Belichick told reporters. “We were able to run quite a bit of time off the clock without really having to do anything. That’s probably a loophole that will be closed and probably should be closed but right now it’s open.”

Unfortunately, about nine weeks later Belichick had the same loophole used against him by Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, who played under Belichick in the 2000s, during New England's Wild-Card loss to Tennessee.

Now, it looks like an AFC East rival of the Patriots is trying to get that loophole fixed.

On Tuesday, the NFL's Football Operations Department announced some of the rule changes submitted by different football clubs. Among the proposals was one submitted by Miami, who proposed that the NFL "provide the option to the defense for the game clock to start on the referees signal if the defense declines an offensive penalty that occurs late in either half."

Here’s a look at the 2020 rules change proposals submitted by the clubs: https://t.co/Wkwst9sraf pic.twitter.com/mTm5YTk86P
— NFL Football Operations (@NFLFootballOps) March 10, 2020

Chances are that Miami's rule proposal will be accepted and the loophole will be gone come the 2020 season. Though it never happened to Miami up until this point, former Patriots coach and now Dolphins head coach Brian Flores wants to make sure he never suffers from that misfortune when he plays New England or any other team that may try and take advantage of that clock-killing tactic. I can't say I blame him.