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That whole 11 minute thing has been one of the all time stupidest “stats” dumb reporters have been waving around for 25 years. It goes under the completely false assumption that the only time football happens is between the snap and the whistle. 90% of whether a play succeeds or fails is determined by pre-snap reads and adjustments, that 20 seconds BEFORE the snap, any “stat” that pretends that time doesn’t matter is, quite simply, a lie. And you know football better than that.

“That whole 11 minute thing has been one of the all time stupidest “stats” dumb reporters have been waving around for 25 years. It goes under the completely false assumption that the only time football happens is between the snap and the whistle. 90% of whether a play succeeds or fails is determined by pre-snap reads and adjustments, that 20 seconds BEFORE the snap, any “stat” that pretends that time doesn’t matter is, quite simply, a lie. And you know football better than that.” - discostu

Exactly my friend. It is rather insipid thinking.

It’s like comparing Chess to the game of “tic tac toe” and claiming Chess is inferior to the tedious Tic Tac Toe because the latter has so much more action. None of the stratagizing and thought that goes into Chess counts for anything; you must simply add up the time spent moving your objects.

Football is superior to ALL sports because of the previously cited reasons. Basketball has a prodigious amount of scoring and it bores the hell out of me because it is so monotonous. The guys are an average of 7 feet tall and score almost effortlessly.

They could shorten the games to 5 minutes because that’s what it always comes down to. Everyone would just step up the level of exertion to account for the shorter time and the END RESULT would usually be the same.

I don't think that's such a dumb figure at all. Sure, the success or failure of a play in football depends a lot on what happens before the ball is snapped. But that's like saying that the success of failure of a hitter's at-bat in a baseball game depends a lot on batting practice, on the pitcher's pre-game warmups, on the hitter's off-the-field pre-game preparation, etc.

The simple truth is that American football shares one of the serious flaws of soccer -- in that these are the only major sports where the clock keeps running after the whistle blows. Nowhere is this more apparent than when you attend an NFL game in person. When you are sitting in the stands without on-screen graphics and commentary between plays, and without direct access to a refrigerator, a bathroom, or anything else that could fill several minutes of time during television commercial breaks, it's amazing how dull and mind-numbing football has become. It's worse than baseball, because at least the interruptions in baseball games are "natural" breaks between innings and fit into the flow of the game.