Fisher cites clock error in final minutes of Rams' opening loss

ST. LOUIS -- Jeff Fisher had the end game mapped out. Let the clock run down to the two-minute warning, then send Steven Jackson off tackle to burn more time before kicking the go-ahead field goal.

Then he watched the clock, frozen at 2:38 for several seconds, as the 40-second play clock wound down.

The NFL has admitted that a mistake by the clock operator in Sunday's last-second loss at Detroit basically gave the Lions an extra timeout. Perhaps they still would have won, but it certainly would have changed how the finish played out.

"In essence, Detroit was granted an extra timeout, I guess, if you want to look at it from our perspective," Fisher said Monday.

"There was an error. I did report it to the league, and that's all I can do."

The league office agreed. It's just a bit of consolation for a team coming off a two-win season that took the Lions to the wire on the road in their opening 27-23 loss.

Fisher said he didn't replay the events endlessly overnight, mentioning several other potential turning points.

"There's a lot of areas on the tape and film where we're a play away," Fisher said. "You make a play here, you make a play there, you have a chance to win the ballgame."

After the league's weekly review of game tape, Greg Aiello, the NFL's senior vice president of communications, said the clock was stopped incorrectly.

"The officials did not signal for it to stop," Aiello said in an email. "The game clock was three seconds behind where it should have been. ... The game clock stopped incorrectly for a few seconds."

The clock issue did not come at Lions coach Jim Schwartz' media briefing Monday.

Fisher has served on the NFL competition committee since 2000 and was co-chairman for many of those years, so he knows the rule book. Fisher said the mistake was "correctable on the field," but added timing issues were not reviewable.

Fisher was careful not to criticize replacement officials, saying clock operation was unrelated to on-field operations.

"This is clock operator error," Fisher said.

The 40-second time clock started three or four seconds before the game clock resumed after quarterback Sam Bradford slid for a 3-yard gain close to the sideline. Fisher anticipated he could let the clock run to the two-minute warning, but instead had to call timeout with 2:03 to go with the play clock about to expire.

Fisher pointed out that none of the officials called for the clock to stop.