Welcome to day four of the Niners Nation NFL Tournament of Badness. Be sure to check out the bracket right here and see where we're at thus far. Yesterday's poll is closed as of this post going live, and the bracket will be updated with its results shortly, as usual. Today, we've got the fourth-seeded "Icing The Kicker," going up against the 13th-seeded "Referee Rule Limiting The No Huddle."
So we can get to the voting, but first: remember, we are voting on what we believe to be the absolute worst thing of the two. If you're voting in a worst food contest, and you like pizza more than hamburgers, you would then vote for hamburgers in that matchup. Get it? Got it? Good.
(4) Icing The Kicker
This is one of the silliest things in the NFL, if not the worst. Coaches will call a timeout right before the snap so as to cancel out a potential field goal attempt. This supposedly will throw the kicker off their game and will force them to miss the next kick. It's complete untrue, it doesn't bother most kickers in the slightest. Of course, sometimes the kicker will make it and then miss his next attempt, and therefore icing the kicker paid off. Unfortunately for some, though, this has went the other way numerous times, perhaps even close to on-par with the times it pays off. Coaches will call it, the kick will miss, and then they'll make it on their second try. How's that feel? I bet it feels great. Another thing that irritates me is that they go over to referees and tell them "I'm calling a timeout before a snap," and they don't even have to time it half the time. Not every referee will do it, but a lot of them will. Personally, I feel as though icing the kicker is jut a thing coaches do to feel like they're doing more than they actually are.
(13) Referee Rule Limiting The No Huddle
This was initially in the elimination round, and it made it through. There's a new rule that says the referees have to be set behind the line of scrimmage before a play can begin, which severely hinders quick playcalling. I've seen it have an effect on offenses that weren't even running the no huddle, that's how slow the referees are to get to it sometimes. This haven't affected the 49ers much considering they were ucky to get a play off before a delay-of-game in 2010 anyway, but it still sucks. A lot.