MLS Next Pro’s experimental efforts to curtail time-wasting yield quick results

As coach of MLS Next Pro’s Sporting Kansas City II, Feilhaber saw the effectiveness of the league’s off-field treatment rule, which was implemented last summer. The rule says that “if the referee stops play due to a potential player injury, the player may be required to leave the field of play for three minutes.”

The rule has “exceptions” built in for issues like head injuries, bleeding, cardiac or serious injury incidents, or red- or yellow-card inducing tackles, but the aim is simple: stop time-wasting tactics.

The results after one and a half seasons of implementation were clear, and eye-opening: an 80% reduction in extended stoppages due to on-field treatment.

Prior to implementation of the rule, players went down due to potential injury for 15-plus seconds an average of six times per MLS Next Pro game, including injuries that would have fallen into line with the exceptions to the rule. With the off-field treatment rule in place, that number was reduced to 1.21 incidents per game — 1.01 per game were “exceptions” to the rule (injuries that required stoppage but didn’t trigger the three-minute waiting period) and just 0.20 per game were times the player had to remain off the field for three minutes.