It time the National Football League opens its eyes and gets rid of the stupidest rule I have ever seen in my 31 years of following professional football.

The American public and the rest of the world is growing sick of coaches taking timeouts just before the opposing team is set to try a field goal. 

The trend started in week 2 when it looked like the Oakland Raiders had upset the Denver Broncos on a field goal in overtime but it turned out that Broncos coach Mike Shanahan had called timeout an instant before the ball was snapped. The Raiders had to try again, they missed, and the Broncos won.

The following week the Raiders used the same strategy against the Cleveland Browns and it worked again. The Browns kicked a game-winning field goals only to learn the Raiders had called timeout just before the snap to negate the kick and the win. The Raiders blocked the next kick, the one that actually counted, and they won the game.

Last Monday night was the first time time I ever seen a team have to kick two field goals to win a game. Cowboys kicker Nick Folk drilled a 53 yard field goal as time expired to give the Cowboys an apparent 25-24 come from behind victory over the Buffalo Bills.

Bills fans got a reprieve like Dr. Richard Kimble in the Fugitive. Unfortunately for Bills fans the reprieve lasted only as long as they could get back to their seats and watch Folk pull the trigger on the Bills and this time Bills fans could actually head to the exits and not come back.

It was a thrilling ending to one of the most exciting games of this NFL season, but it was an ending that was tarnished by the uncertainty surrounding the game-winning kick.

Joe Gibbs showed some class Sunday afternoon at Lambeau field when Green Bay Packers rookie kicker Mason Crosby lined up for a 40 yard plus field goal on the last play of the first half. Gibbs called timeout to ice Crosby well before the Packers got the line set to attempt the field goal and it worked. Crosby sent his field goal try wide left and Washington kept its 14-7 lead heading into halftime.

The only good things to come out of this timeout craze is that Shanahan’s Broncos haven’t won a game since he pulled his timeout antic on the Raiders. Maybe Shanahan should worry more about keeping people in the seats at Invesco Field during Broncos games, than spending his whole week game planning around a last second timeout.

The easiet way to get rid of this fade would’ve been for Janikowski (Raiders) to miss the first FG attempt in overtime against the Broncos and then nail the game winning after Shanahan called timeout to negate the first attempt.

I would’ve loved to hear Shanahan’s explanation on why he called a timeout on a missed field goal, only to give the Raiders a second chance to successfully hit the game winner after missing the first attempt.

Maybe Commissioner Roger Goodell and his NFL empire should spend some of its total revenue of $5.86 billion in 2006 and review these last second timeouts.

Commish do you want the Super Bowl to be decided on whether the referee blew the whistle in time to negate a game winning field goal attempt. The game needs to be decided on the field not by a zebra with a whistler.

Maybe just one suggestion Commish – teams can call timeout on field goal attempts up until the offensive line gets set. After that no timeouts can be called be either side.

Considering it will take at least a year for the NFL to figure out that this rule needs to be changed, take my suggestion Commish and just send me 1 percent of your salary for the 2007/08  NFL season.