NFL Timeout Rules: How Many, How Long and Who Can Call
NFL timeout rules give each team three per half and two in regular-season overtime. How long a timeout lasts, who may call one and what misuse costs.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished NFL Rules22 min read
- Timeouts per team each half
- 3
- Regular-season overtime
- 2 per team
- Length with a TV break
- 2 minutes
- Trying to ice a kicker twice
- 15 yards
Thanksgiving Day, 2012. Justin Forsett of the Houston Texans was clearly down after a short gain against the Detroit Lions, kept running because no whistle had blown, and went 81 yards for a touchdown. Lions coach Jim Schwartz threw his red challenge flag in anger. Scoring plays were already reviewed automatically by the booth, and under the rule of the day his flag did not just fail: it cost his team 15 yards and stopped the review from happening at all. The touchdown stood. The league rewrote the rule for the next season, and the episode is still the clearest illustration of how closely timeouts, challenges and penalties are tied together in the NFL rulebook.
The core of the NFL timeout rules is simple. Each team gets three charged timeouts in each half, and unused first-half timeouts do not carry over. Regular-season overtime adds two per team. A timeout lasts two minutes if television takes a commercial during it and 30 seconds if not. The head coach or any player on the field can ask for one, from any official, but only while the ball is dead. A team may not take two in the same dead-ball period, and a defense that tries to do it to unsettle a kicker loses 15 yards.
How many timeouts each team gets, and why none carry over
Rule 4, Section 5, Article 1, Item 1 reads in full: "A team is allowed three charged team timeouts during each half and two timeouts during an overtime period in the regular season." Two short sentences follow. The referee or another official will tell the head coach when he has used up his allowance, and "any request for additional timeouts should be ignored."
The phrase "during each half" settles the carryover question. The first-half allowance belongs to the first half. A team that reaches halftime with two timeouts unused starts the third quarter with three, the same as a team that used all of its first-half allowance. Nothing is banked.
- 3Each half of regulation
- 6Regulation game in total
- 2Regular-season overtime period
- 3Each playoff overtime half
From Rule 4, Section 5 and Rule 16 of the NFL rulebook. Playoff overtime is played in 15-minute periods, and the three timeouts cover each pair of periods.
Why the allowance is per half
The design gives each half its own late-game drama. If timeouts carried over, a team that had played a clean first half could go into the fourth quarter with five or six, and the closing minutes would be shaped by how frugal a coach was two hours earlier. Resetting at halftime means both endings are played on the same terms.
It has a less flattering effect too. Because first-half timeouts expire, coaches use them freely in the last two minutes before halftime: to stop the clock on defense and get the ball back, to set up a field goal, or simply because they are about to disappear. A good share of those timeouts would have been worth far more in the fourth quarter. The rule converts them into a use-it-or-lose-it budget.
Who counts them
The officials keep the tally, and the rulebook makes the referee responsible for telling the coach when his last one is gone. The scoreboard usually shows remaining timeouts as dots or bars under each team's score. That display is a courtesy. The official count is the crew's.
How long a timeout lasts, and who decides
The length of a charged team timeout is in Item 2 of the same article. Timeouts "shall be two minutes in length unless the timeout is not used by television for a commercial break." When it is not, the timeout is 30 seconds.
The book lists three situations in which a timeout runs 30 seconds:
- the network has used up its designated number of commercials in that quarter;
- it is the second charged team timeout in the same dead-ball period, which can only happen when one team takes one and the other team follows;
- the referee says so.
The third item gives the referee the final word. In practice the crew knows whether the network is taking a break because a coordinator on the sideline signals it, and the referee restarts play when the break is over.
Why the length matters
A 30-second timeout is a different tool from a two-minute one. The 30-second version stops the clock and buys enough time to change a play or a personnel group. It does not give a coordinator time to draw up anything new. A two-minute timeout, especially late in a game, lets a staff go through two or three plays, settle a quarterback and make substitutions.
After any charged team timeout, the play clock is set to 25 seconds and starts on the referee's whistle, and the game clock waits for the snap. That restart rule matters more to clock management than the length. The play-clock side of the stoppage is covered in our guide to the 40- and 25-second play clocks.
Intermissions are a separate clock
The breaks between the first and second quarters and the third and fourth are intermissions of at least two minutes, and halftime is 13 minutes. None of these is a timeout of any kind, and none is charged. The book treats them as part of the structure of the game.
Who can call a timeout: coaches, players and the assistant's mistake
Article 1 says the referee will declare a charged team timeout "upon the request for a timeout by the head coach or any player (not a substitute) to any official." Three points follow.
The request can go to any official, not just the referee. A linebacker can turn to the umpire behind him. A quarterback can signal to the back judge downfield. A head coach can shout at the line judge in front of his bench. Once any official grants it, the timeout is charged.
The player has to be on the field. A substitute standing on the sideline has no standing to call one. That keeps a team from using a backup on the bench as a second channel for requests.
The head coach can move beyond his bench to call one. Rule 13 keeps coaches inside the area marked out for the bench, but it lets a head coach move laterally down the sideline "to call a team timeout or challenge an on-field ruling when the ball is positioned outside the bench area." A coach running 20 yards down the line, arms making a T, is acting within the rules.
The assistant coach's signal
The rule then adds one sentence: "If an assistant coach signals for a timeout and it is inadvertently granted, the timeout will stand." Only the head coach and the players are allowed to request one. Officials are told to ignore requests from assistants. But if an official mistakes an assistant's signal for a legitimate request and stops the game, the timeout is not undone. It is charged.
That sentence exists because the alternative is unworkable. An official facing a sideline of a dozen coaches, several of them waving, has a split second to decide whether the request came from the right person. Making the timeout reversible would mean undoing a stopped clock, which the rules cannot do cleanly. So the risk sits with the team. A head coach whose assistant waves his arms in the last minute has spent a timeout whether he wanted to or not.
Only when the ball is dead
The referee suspends play "while the ball is dead." A timeout requested during a play is granted when the play ends. A timeout requested just before the snap may be granted, in which case an official blows a whistle and the play does not count. That situation produces some of the strangest moments in the game, most of them involving kickers.
No back-to-back timeouts: one per team in each dead-ball period
Item 3 of Article 1 sets the limit. "Each team may be granted a charged team timeout during the same dead ball period, but a second charged team timeout by either team during the same dead ball period is prohibited."
Read carefully, that sentence allows two timeouts in a row, as long as they come from different teams. The offense calls one, and the defense follows with its own before the next snap. The second is shorter, 30 seconds, under the length rule. What the book forbids is the same team taking two.
There are also stoppages that do not count against the limit. A team can call a timeout immediately after a referee's timeout, or after "any automatic or other administrative timeouts." The two-minute warning is the obvious one. A team can therefore take a timeout straight after the warning, and coaches sometimes do so to extend a conference that the warning began.
| Situation | What the rulebook does |
|---|---|
| Each team calls one in the same dead-ball period | Both granted; the second is 30 seconds |
| A team takes one right after the two-minute warning | Granted; the warning is not a team timeout |
| Same team is granted a second in one dead-ball period | Five yards for delay of game; the timeout is charged |
| A team out of timeouts is granted another | Five yards for delay of game; charged as an excess timeout |
| Defense tries a second or excess timeout to freeze a kicker | Ignored; 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct |
| Coach challenges with no timeouts left | 15 yards, enforced as a foul between downs |
The five yards
If officials do grant a second timeout to the same team in one dead-ball period, or grant one to a team that has none left, the penalty is five yards for delay of game and the timeout is charged. The yardage and enforcement follow the ordinary delay rules covered in our guide to the NFL delay of game penalty.
There is a clock consequence as well. If the offense commits this foul while time is running after the two-minute warning, the defense has a 10-second runoff option, and the play clock is set to 30. If the defense commits it, the play clock is set to 40 and the game clock starts on the ready-for-play signal unless the offense prefers it to start on the snap. A team cannot use a mistaken timeout to stop a clock it should not have been able to stop.
Icing the kicker: the timeout at the snap and the 15-yard ban
The tactic is old and simple. With the opponent lined up for a field goal, the defensive coach waits until the last moment and calls a timeout, often just as the ball is being snapped. The kicker has gone through his routine, perhaps kicked the ball, and must now do it again. The idea is that the delay will make him think.
The kick that did not count
When the timeout is granted just before the snap, the officials blow their whistles but often not before the kick is under way. The kicker completes his motion, the ball flies, and the crowd reacts to a kick that was never live. The rule is clear: the ball was dead when the timeout was granted, so nothing that happened afterward counts.
The best-known example cuts against the tactic's purpose. On December 4, 2011, at the end of regulation in Arizona, Dallas coach Jason Garrett called a timeout on his own kicker, Dan Bailey, just before the snap of a potential game-winning field goal. Bailey's kick went through. It did not count. His second attempt was missed, and the Cardinals won in overtime. Coaches icing their own kicker are rare. Defenses icing the opposing one are not.
Trying it twice
The NFL's restriction is in Item 4 of Article 1, and in Rule 12. "An attempt to call an excess team timeout, or to call a second timeout in the same dead ball period, by Team B in an attempt to 'freeze' a kicker prior to a field goal or Try kick attempt shall be ignored and is unsportsmanlike conduct regardless of whether a timeout is granted." The penalty is 15 yards.
- First timeoutThe defense calls one before the snap. It is legal, charged, and the kick does not count if the whistle comes first.
- Second attemptBefore the next snap, the defense asks for another timeout to freeze the kicker again.
- Officials ignore itThe request is not granted and the kick goes ahead as a live play.
- Down completedWhatever happens on the kick stands, subject to the penalty.
- Fifteen yardsUnsportsmanlike conduct is enforced after the down. If the timeout was granted by mistake, it is a dead-ball foul and the timeout is charged.
From Rule 4, Section 5, Article 1, Item 4 and Rule 12, Section 3, Article 1(v) of the NFL rulebook. The first timeout in a dead-ball period is legal.
In practice a defense with a 15-yard penalty hanging over its head does not try. The first timeout is the only icing timeout in the modern NFL. What else the unsportsmanlike conduct foul covers is set out in our guide to the NFL unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
Does icing work
The evidence is thin and points mostly one way. Analysts have compared field-goal success after timeouts called just before a kick with success on comparable kicks without one, using NFL play-by-play data, and the published comparisons have generally found no clear effect. Samples are small, kicks vary in distance and conditions, and the ones that get iced are not a random sample. That makes a firm conclusion hard either way. The most defensible reading is that icing is a low-cost habit with no reliable benefit. Its persistence probably says more about a coach's need to do something in that moment than about kickers. The question of how far kicks can go when nobody is icing anyone is the subject of our guide to the longest field goals in NFL history.
Injury timeouts before and after the two-minute warning
For most of the game an injury costs a team nothing. Rule 4, Section 5, Article 2 calls an injury timeout when an official judges a player injured or when attendants come on from the bench, and Article 3 governs what it costs before the two-minute warning. The timeout is not charged. The injured player has to leave for at least one down, and the game clock restarts as though nothing had happened.
From the two-minute warning on, the book changes the price. The team of the injured player is charged one of its timeouts, unless the injury came from an opponent's foul or happened on a down with a score, a change of possession, a free kick or a try. If the team has no timeouts left, the referee calls an excess timeout. The first one costs no yardage. Every later one in that half costs five yards. If the injured player is on the offense and the clock was running, the defense may also choose a 10-second runoff.
Why the change happens at the warning
It is aimed at the faked injury, which the rulebook names directly in a note saying the Competition Committee "deprecates feigning injuries, with subsequent withdrawal, to obtain a timeout without penalty." Early in a game a fake injury slows an up-tempo offense. Late in a half it can stop a clock that a team otherwise has no way to stop. Charging a timeout for it after the warning removes most of the incentive. The details of who must come off the field, and how the warning itself alters the rules around it, are in our guide to the NFL two-minute warning.
The defense gets no runoff and a sterner treatment instead. In the last 40 seconds of a half, an excess timeout for an injured defender while time is running ends the half, unless the defense still has a timeout or the offense chooses to play on.
Timeouts as currency for a challenge
A head coach cannot challenge a ruling without a timeout to stake. Rule 15, Section 1 says "Each challenge requires an available team timeout," and a team that is out of timeouts or out of challenges "may not attempt to initiate a challenge."
The exchange runs in both directions.
- Win the challenge, and the timeout is not charged. A challenge counts as successful "if any reviewable aspect of the play is changed."
- Lose it, and the team is charged a timeout. If it took a timeout before throwing the flag and then lost, it is charged a second one.
- Win at least one, and a third challenge becomes available. A fourth is never allowed.
The head coach throws the red flag, or a pregame designee does it for him, and it has to land before the next legal snap or kick.
When a challenge costs 15 yards
This is where the 2012 Thanksgiving game comes in. Under the current rule, a team that initiates a challenge when it is not permitted to, such as on a play the booth reviews automatically or after the two-minute warning, is charged a timeout. A team that throws the flag with no timeouts left loses 15 yards, enforced as a foul between downs. The review itself is no longer cancelled. That was the point of the 2013 change: a coach's mistake should not stop officials from getting the call right.
The full scope of what can be challenged and reviewed is in our explainer on what the replay center in New York can change.
Why a challenge costs a timeout at all
The stake is what keeps challenges rare. Without it, a coach would throw the flag on every close call because a review costs him nothing. Tying the challenge to a timeout makes him weigh the chance that the call is wrong against a stoppage he might need in the fourth quarter. Late in a close game, few coaches are willing to stake their last timeout on a spot of the ball.
The stoppages that belong to nobody
Plenty of stoppages are not charged to either team, and confusing them with timeouts is a common source of argument.
| Stoppage | Who it is charged to | Where in the rulebook |
|---|---|---|
| Two-minute warning | Neither team | Rule 3, Section 41 and Rule 4, Section 4 |
| Referee's timeout | Neither team | Rule 4, Section 5, Article 5 |
| Injury before the two-minute warning | Neither team | Rule 4, Section 5, Article 3 |
| Replay review started by the booth | Neither team | Rule 15, Section 1, Article 2 |
| Intermission between quarters | Neither team | Rule 4, Section 1, Article 2 |
The referee's timeout
Article 5 allows the referee to stop play and the clock "at any time without penalty to either team when playing time is being consumed because of an unintentional delay." The book's list includes a possible first-down measurement, an unusual pileup or a fumble scramble whose outcome is unclear, slow spotting by the officials, a snap made before officials are in position, an injury to an official or a member of the chain crew, an officials' conference, and repairing game equipment other than a player's own. After one, both clocks resume as though it had not occurred.
Television timeouts
Commercials are scheduled around stoppages that happen anyway: after a score, after a change of possession, at the end of a quarter. The rulebook acknowledges television breaks through the timeout-length rule and the play-clock rule for a free kick after a television timeout, but does not treat them as timeouts belonging to either team. A team that calls a timeout during a quarter when the broadcast still needs a break may find its timeout lasting two minutes because the network fills it.
Replay reviews
A review initiated by the replay official is not charged to anyone. A coach's challenge is charged if it fails. The two can look identical from the stands.
Asking for a timeout you do not have
The rulebook is clear about the default. When a team has used all its timeouts in a half, the referee or another official will notify the head coach, and "any request for additional timeouts should be ignored." The officials do not stop the game. Play continues, and the request is treated as though it had not been made.
If an official grants it anyway, the timeout is an excess timeout. The penalty is five yards for delay of game and the timeout is charged, though there is nothing left to charge it to. When the team in that position is the offense, with time in and after the two-minute warning, the defense may also take a 10-second runoff, and the play clock resets to 30. If the defense was the offender, the play clock is reset to 40 and the clock starts on the ready signal unless the offense chooses otherwise.
Faking one
A player who signals for a timeout he knows his team does not have, hoping an official will stop the clock out of habit, gets the same treatment if it works and nothing if it does not. A defense doing it to freeze a kicker gets the 15-yard unsportsmanlike foul described above, whether or not the timeout is granted.
The quiet failure
The more common late-game problem is not a request for a timeout a team does not have. It is a team that thinks it has one and does not. Scoreboards show remaining timeouts, broadcasts show them, and coaches are told when they are out. Still, players on the field occasionally signal for one that is gone, and the result is a play clock still running and a quarterback looking at the referee with his hands in a T. The book's answer is to keep playing.
Using timeouts well: the defense, the warning and the first half
A defense that wants the ball back late in a game is fighting the offense's play clock. Each snap the offense takes with the game clock running can be preceded by up to 40 seconds of game time. Each timeout the defense calls after a play stops the game clock, and because the clock then waits for the snap, it deletes that 40-second gap entirely.
Three timeouts plus the two-minute warning is four stoppages, which is the standard way coaches count. Against an offense that has the ball, needs a first down, and is running the ball to keep the clock moving, a defense with all four can force a punt with most of the two minutes intact. With two, it gets the ball back with perhaps half of that. With none, the offense can often run out the clock with three runs and a punt. The kneel-down version of that arithmetic, with a chart, is in our guide to the NFL clock rules.
When to spend them
Defensive timeouts are usually spent immediately after a play. A timeout called with 20 seconds on the play clock has given the offense nothing; called after the offense has run the play clock down to three, it has wasted 37 seconds of game time. Coaches who wait for the offense to line up before calling time are making that mistake.
Offenses spend them differently. A trailing offense prefers to stop the clock with incompletions and sideline routes, saving timeouts for the moments when neither is possible: a completion in the middle of the field, a sack, a run that ends in bounds.
First-half timeouts
Because they expire at halftime, first-half timeouts are spent more freely. A defense that forces a third down near the two-minute mark before halftime will often call time after each opponent snap, hoping to get the ball back for a field-goal drive. An offense will use them to set up a kick at the end of the second quarter. Neither would be as willing in the fourth quarter. The arithmetic of when to go for a fourth down instead of punting, which shapes how many possessions a half contains, is the subject of our explainer on fourth-down decision-making in the NFL.
Timeouts in overtime and the playoffs
Regular-season overtime is a single 10-minute period. Rule 16 gives each team two timeouts for it and applies the usual excess-timeout rules. Timeouts left from regulation do not carry over, just as first-half timeouts do not carry into the second half. A team that ended regulation with three timeouts begins overtime with two.
The playoffs are played to a result, in 15-minute periods. Each team is entitled to three timeouts during a "half," which in postseason overtime means the first two periods together, then the third and fourth together. The end of the second overtime period is timed as the end of a first half, so its timeouts expire like first-half timeouts.
What this does to overtime strategy
With only two timeouts in the regular-season period, a team that receives first and drives slowly can use a large share of the 10 minutes. If it scores, the opponent has whatever time remains to answer with two timeouts. If the first team drives for a long touchdown, the answering team may be in two-minute mode almost at once. The structure of the overtime format, including the guarantee that both teams get a possession, is set out in our explainer on NFL overtime and why the coin toss still matters.
How timeout rules differ in college and high school football
The college and high school codes start from the same allowance and differ elsewhere.
| Rule | NFL | NCAA college football | NFHS high school football |
|---|---|---|---|
| Timeouts per half | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Unused first-half timeouts carry over | No | No | No |
| Timeouts in overtime | 2 in the regular-season period; 3 per postseason overtime half | 1 per team in each of the first two overtime periods, and one for the rest of the game from the third | Set by the overtime format; commonly 1 per team in each overtime period |
| How overtime is played | A timed period | Untimed possessions from the opponent's 25, then alternating two-point attempts from the third period | Untimed possessions in most states |
College football
The NCAA allowance in regulation matches the NFL's: three per half, none carried over. Overtime is the large difference. College overtime is played in possessions from a fixed yard line instead of on a clock, and each team gets one timeout in each of the first two periods. From the third period on, where the format switches to alternating two-point attempts, a team has a single timeout for the rest of the game. The format is described in our guide to college football overtime rules.
That changes what a timeout is for. In an NFL overtime the clock is still running and a timeout saves time. In a college overtime there is no clock to save, so the single timeout is a pure planning tool: a pause before a third-and-goal, or a way to make the opposing kicker wait. It is also the stake for a challenge: a college head coach may challenge a ruling, with a charged timeout behind it that is not charged if the challenge succeeds, and how many challenges he gets is set by the NCAA's rulebook rather than the NFL's.
High school
High school football under the National Federation of State High School Associations also allows three timeouts per half. Overtime procedures are set by the national rulebook but states can and do adopt their own variations, so the exact overtime allowance depends on where the game is played. Most high school games have no replay at all.
The NFL rules are the most elaborate of the three, mostly because the league has had to answer specific tactics: icing a kicker twice, faking injuries, challenging plays already under review. Each answer is a clause. More of the site's guides to the professional and college game are collected on our American football page.