In fact, according to a 2010 wall street journal study of four football broadcasts, the ball was only in play for an average of 10 minutes and 43 seconds — approximately 4 seconds per play — even though an nfl telecast lasts about three hours.. A game is 60 minutes, so in clock time, i would say that those who do stay on for all the snaps play about 25 minutes. now if you want to get more complicated, of the 60 minutes, only about 15 of them contain any action. so, in effect, a player actually plays about 6–7 minutes in an nfl game.. Actual playing time in nfl football posted: 2/6/2009 7:22:34 pm it will take a whole lot longer than 12 minuites to play a entire football game. there is 15 minuites to a quarter, 4 quarters in a game, then there could be possible overtime..
The most surprising finding of the journal‘s study — that the average game has just 10 minutes and 43 seconds of actual playing time — has been corroborated by other researchers. in november. According to a wall street journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an nfl game is about 11. While the actual playing time has remained relatively the same over the years, the actual time from the start of the game to the finish has increased dramatically. the use of timeouts by each team, injury time, replay time and commercial time has lengthened games significantly..