I'm not a fan of football. Football is a game for oafs. Like my two large colleagues that I founded this system with. Soccer, basketball and volleyball are real games requiring finesse, agility, intelligence, all the finest human characteristics. You'll find a download soon called "Mind Sports" that has a variety of games ... and sub-games, like football, posted on this site.
However, to solve the problem of defense pulling cards (which takes time) and the offense never getting four downs ... how about if at the start of the game, each side pulls (oh, very secretly!) three defense cards. These cards can be played on any down of the offense. Of course, intelligent defense would play them when the offense is close to scoring. That would be exciting, if genuine excitement was possible in football.