On the last drive of the game Cousin's was sacked early in the drive. He fumbled and the falcons recovered. My question…..why the hell did the clock stop? He was sacked with like 1:31 on the clock (kind of guessing on time but around there), and the clock just stopped. It never started again until the snapped the ball.

I get it stops for the refs to announce what happened. But whatever happened there seemed asinine. Had he not fumbled and it just been a sack, I'd wager 15+ seconds would have come off the clock (or forced a time out) before all players got back to the los and ready for a snap.

So why did the clock stop? Why wasn't there a run off?

According to the play-by-play, 15 seconds elapsed between that play (1:44) and the next one (1:29, 2nd & 18, incomplete to Mooney and flagged for holding). The clock status isn't recorded but my guess is the refs stopped the clock for the turnover, then after determining ATL recovered their own fumble, announced that and restarted the clock. There's no way the sack play took 15 seconds of game time.

It did give them a chance to get ready for the next play more quickly, but you can't let the clock keep running on a (potential) turnover. I am a bit surprised this isn't one of those 10 second runoff situations, which I think they're going a bit overboard with. (I think it was a recent Cowboys game where they were marked short of the first down, then the booth review determined it was a first down, and Dallas got tagged with a 10 second runoff... because the refs incorrectly spotted the ball?)