Mike Lupica says the NFL should change the rule that teams can try to freeze a kicker by calling a timeout right before the ball is snapped as the Cowboys did to the Giants Sunday.
John Mara is on the NFL's competition committee, and there was a lot of conversation about the timeout rule during the offseason and finally, as he says, "We decided it doesn't put the kicker at a disadvantage."
Maybe not. And not this time for sure. There still has to be a better way of doing this. If you're going to freeze the kicker, you freeze him whenever the timeout is called. But under no circumstances should the ball ever be in the air if the result isn't going to count, one way or the other.
I disagree with Lupica. You can say it's a disadvantage for the kicker, but how about the times when he misses the first try and then gets an extra shot because the defense calls timeout. What if the defense has a legitimate reason to call a timeout like not having enough men on the field? What if the kicking team called a fake? I don't see any real way of telling one team it can't call a timeout up to the snap.
What do you think?