Last season, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick took advantage of a rule loophole to run time off the lock against the Jets during the regular season.

That same loophole was used against him by Titans coach (and former Patriots staffer) Mike Vrabel in the playoffs, in Tennessee’s win over New England.

When the Patriots did it against the Jets, Belichick conceded that the league should probably address the loophole, and it appears they will be doing so now.

First: The rule. Basically, to try and prevent teams from getting essentially a free timeout late in games on fourth down, the rules currently state that any penalty committed with less than five minutes remaining on fourth down would cause the clock to continue running.

The rule was written to prevent teams, desperately losing, from just committing a cheap five-yard penalty in order to stop the clock and give themselves time to organize a fourth down play.

What Belichick realized, however, was this could be a way for a winning team to run valuable time off the clock. Commit a penalty on fourth down, back up five yards, the play clock resets and the game clock keeps running.

Against the Jets, leading 33-0, the Patriots first let the play clock run out for a delay of game penalty. After it was declined, the Patriots’ Brandon Bolden appeared to intentionally jump for a false start with one second left. Again, the clock kept running. (Bolden was smiling huge after the penalty was called, as was Belichick.)

Belichick can’t hide the smile!! 😆 pic.twitter.com/3aVdaKWVuD — Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) October 22, 2019

The Patriots were able to run 90 seconds off the clock in that game.

In the Titans game, Mike Vrabel used the same strategy.

Via CBS:

The Titans had a fourth-and-5 from the Patriots’ 36-yard line with just 6:33 left to play. Due to the weather, Vrabel didn’t want to kick a field goal, so he decided to punt the ball, but not until after his team took a delay of game penalty, which took the clock down to 5:52. Following that penalty, the Titans got a fresh 25-second play clock, and they let the new clock tick down to zero before taking a false start penalty, which didn’t sit well with Belichick.

Now it appears the league will be addressing this, as there is reportedly an amendment to the rule being considered by the NFL Competition Committee. At that point, we’ll get a real “Bill Belichick rule” in the rulebook, which I look forward to.