Crystal Ball (nevermind)

One day some genius football coach will take advantage of this, and you can say that you read it first here on the Toni Broxton Blog:

Let's say your team is trailing and time is running out. They are trying to save time by running out of bounds after each play. You've seen plenty of games decided by the runner not being able to get out of bounds and the clock ticks down and the team either has no time left or not enough time.

I asked myself many years ago:
How come the runner doesn't just lateral the ball out of bounds? Once you've got the yardage you need, it's about preserving the clock. If you just toss it behind you out of bounds, it's considered a fumble and the clock stops until the next snap.

As far as I can tell from looking at the NFL rules page on their website, this would work.

WHY ISN'T ANYONE DOING THIS?!?!

The only risk you run is a defensive player getting in between the runner and the sideline and picking up the fumble, but honestly what kind of idiot can't toss the ball hard enough to get it out of bounds without it getting stolen.

Eventually someone will take advantage of this, and one day they will make a rule change for it.

EDIT:
NEVERMIND!!!
According to NFL Rulebook Rule 4, Section 3, Article 10:

Article 10:
A team is not permitted to conserve time inside of one minute of either half by committing any of the following acts: fouls by either team that prevent the snap (i.e., false start, encroachment, etc.), intentional grounding, an illegal forward pass thrown from beyond the line of scrimmage with the intent to conserve time, throwing a backward pass out of bounds with the intent to conserve time, and any other intentional foul that causes the clock to stop.

Penalty: Loss of five yards unless a larger distance penalty is applicable. When actions referred to above are committed by the offensive team with the clock running, officials will run 10 seconds off the game clock before permitting the ball to be put in play on the ready for play signal. The clock will start on the ready for play signal. If the offensive team has timeouts remaining, it will have the option of using a timeout in lieu of a 10-second runoff. If the action is by the defense, the play clock will be reset to 40 seconds and the game clock will start on the ready signal. If the defense has time outs remaining, it will have theoption of using a time out in lieu of the game clock being started.

No wonder. It seemed so obvious to me to do that. I guess too obvious.

You could still do it before 1 min left, which could still be useful, and you could try it if you think you can sell that it's not an intentional fumble out of bounds. Intent is so hard to judge that I think if you have nothing to lose, why not give it a shot?

In either case, the rules outline on the NFL website sucks. It's so imcomplete. I had to find a .pdf version.