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In Week 10, the 49ers committed a deliberate defensive holding penalty near the end of the first half of a game against the Saints in order to shrink the remaining time on the clock. New Orleans was awarded five yards, from the San Francisco 13 to the 8, but the time lost due to the play prompted the Saints to kick a field goal instead of going for the end zone.

Via CSN Bay Area, the NFL has closed the loophole — sort of. Teams can do it once in a given game. If they do it twice, officials are expected to declare the situation to be a palpably unfair act, with a 15-yard penalty and restoration of the lost time on the clock.

49ers defensive coordinator Jim O’Neil addressed the situation on Tuesday.

“I don’t know why our DBs held on that play,” O’Neil told reporters, obviously lying in large part because his lips were moving. “I think one thing that we try to do a great job of is situational football. That was a special situation that might only come up once every three years. For us, it’s happened twice already this year. You guys just didn’t catch the first one. But we train our guys and we work hard on those situations and you hope you don’t have to use them but if they change the rules then we’ll adjust.”

Moving forward, it’s possible to execute the maneuver multiple times in the same game as long as it’s not obvious. Either way, it can be done blatantly and obviously once per game. Which is a reality that every teams needs to factor into their assessment of situational football.