This is awesome. Buddy Ryan actually designed this play for the end of halves, and end of games. You'll notice that there are slightly more than allowed number of defenders, 14. The idea being that even though you're taking a penalty, precious time is running off the clock, and presumably you can stop the offense with 14 players. http://deadspin.com/5851460/
...we probably couldn't stop an offense using 14 players on defense. Interesting concept though lol. I think Nolan designed a 12-man variant of something like this and had been implementing it earlier this year. It wasn't being implemented at the end of halves though.
Ask Tony Eason...... he knows all about it. The Bears looked like they had fourteen players on defense THAT day.... All day.
BUMP Bumping this, because last night we saw it used (a version of it anyway). On I believe the second to last play of the game, the Giants had 12 men on the field. It was a brilliant call, because the Giants traded 5 yards for approx. 7 seconds worth of clock. I haven't seen anyone ask Coughlin or anyone else yet, but I'm almost positive this was by design. Not sure what the NFL can do it about, though. It's just great strategy. EDIT: Apparently a guy for NY was trying to get off the field, so they weren't doing it on purpose. Boo.