End the sideline timeout

Baltimore defensive coordinator Rex Ryan's last-millisecond timeout, which canceled a 4th-and-1 play where his defense stuffed a Tom Brady QB sneak, which in turn would have ended New England's undefeated season, is the last straw for me. The NFL has got to get rid of the sideline timeout.

The sideline timeout simply causes too much chaos. I was surprised last night to see that the head coach doesn't even have to be the guy to call the timeout. Who on the sidelines CAN'T call a timeout? The waterboy? The cheerleaders? These last-second timeouts from the sidelines create confusion not only on the field, but highly importantly, in the stands and wherever fans are watching TV. We see a 4th-and-1 play run to completion, then find out it doesn't count because the last-millisecond timeout came and they couldn't stop the play in time. We see a game-winning FG get kicked, then find out it doesn't count. They couldn't stop the play in time because a timeout came in from the sideline at the last second. (I think Mike Martz, as Rams HC, was a lobbying force for changing the rule, but I don't want to discredit him where it's not due.)

It used to be only the team captain on the field could call timeout. Specialization made that difficult, especially on defense, so the rule changed to let any player on the field call timeout. Apparently unskilled enough to coach their players to avoid a Chris Webber scenario, coaches wanted to be able to call timeouts from the sidelines, so they didn't have to worry about miscommunications or the players making dumb mistakes like calling TO's they don't have.

Then last week, Joe Gibbs makes the dumb mistake of calling timeouts back-to-back while trying to call cutesy timeouts to freeze Buffalo kicker Rian Lindell.

That didn't work, and neither do sideline timeouts. They only create confusion for the fans watching the game. They should be eliminated posthaste. Timeouts should be called only by players on the field of play, where everybody can see what's going on.