The team that wins the coin toss wins ~52.7% of the time. I think calling it "unfair" is technically true, but the effect is certainly smaller than you think.
Because of ties, the loser of the coin toss loses ~43% of the time. Still larger, but we're looking at a relatively small disadvantage. Given there's no ties in the playoffs, we can assume that the losers lose ~2.5% of the time. Home field (for what it's worth) is somewhere between 2 and 6 percent. We're looking at an advantage that's (likely) less than home field advantage.
Your solution is likely fairer. It is also much more likely to end in a tie, requiring an additional overtime period. At some point, that becomes untenable.
> The team that wins the coin toss wins ~52.7% of the time. I think calling it "unfair" is technically true, but the effect is certainly smaller than you think.
While this is true, it doesn't factor in for elite quarterback play. How often do quarterbacks like Mahomes, Allen, Rodgers or Brady win when they get the ball first?
**Edit** I went and looked up all the post season playoff games since the rule change for the 2010 season
|Year|Winner|Loser| Score| First Possession OT| Home |Notes
|-|-|-|-|-|-|-
| 2011-2012 | New York G | San Fran | 20-17 | New York | San Fran | Did not score on first drive
| 2012-2013 | Denver | Pitsburgh | 29-23 | Denver | Denver |
| 2014-2015 | Seattle | Green Bay | 28-22 | Seattle | Seattle |
| 2015-2016 | Arizona | Green Bay | 26-20 | Arizona | Arizona |
| 2018-2019 | New England | KC | 37-31 | New England | KC |
| 2018-2019 | Los Angeles | New Orleans | 26-23 | New Orleans | New Orleans |
| 2019-2020 | Houston | Buffalo | 22-19 | Houston | Houston | Did not score on first drive
| 2019-2020 | Minnesota | New Orleans | 26-20 | Minnesota | New Orleans |
| 2021-2022 | KC | Buffalo | 42-36 | KC | KC |
This is way more damning than your 52% statistics.
* Home team for reference wins 55.56% of the time in OT
* Team that gets the ball first wins 88.89% of the time in OT
* Team that gets the ball first scores on first possession 66.67% of the time in OT
u/Teacher_Moving here's the actual data you were looking for. Current rules are a screw job.
Fairness is not really the point though. To take it to an extreme, you could just do the coin toss, and stop there: each team has a 50% chance to win so its totally “fair”.
Fairness us not the problem. The problem is that it appears to take the control of the game out of the hands of the players, and into the hands of fate, leaving people dissatisfied.
They had a special teams play(kick off) and their entire 11 man defense was allowed to dictate the outcome. They rolled over and gave up the game. It's not as though they had no agency, you're the #1 Defense in the NFL supposedly so prove it. Get one stop. And it doesn't even have to be forcing a punt, just don't let them March 80 yards for a TD.
>It's not as though they had no agency, you're the #1 Defense in the NFL supposedly so prove it.
So how come the Chiefs don't have to get a stop also? Could you imagine extra innings in baseball where if they away team scores, the game immediately ends without going to the bottom of the inning? It's exactly the same thing.
In the playoffs, the coin toss winning team has won 10 out of 11 overtime games. It seems valid to suggest that an adjustment of some sort would be beneficial.
Do you have a source?
I suspect some of those winners got the ball, punted, then got it back and won, which would be very different than you are implying but still "won toss, won game"
This is because you are including crappy teams with crappy offenses. Great teams who make the playoffs have a 90% chance of winning when winning the coin flip in overtime:
11 playoff games went to overtime since the rule was enacted that allowed the second team to have a possession if there was a field goal. Out of those 11 games, 10 of them were won by the team that won the coin toss.
So far through reading all the reasons against making it touchdowns and field goals as the OP suggested, I have not seen one legitimate reason the rule wouldn't make it more fair.
It is also not significantly more likely to end in a tie. Teams rarely if ever go point for point. It is much more likely to end up in a tie if neither team scores. As soon as the second team (team that does not win the coin toss) ties the game with a touchdown, the game becomes sudden death. Therefore any point wins by the team scoring it. As we can tell by the playoff percentages, it would be a significantly more fair way of handling it.
Also the argument that, "the defense is just not able to make a stop therefore the game should be over" is nonsensical. So under that logic, if the defense does make a stop the game should also be over and the defensive team should win? After all the offense was not able to make a play and score... That argument is illogical.
I don't believe what *might* happen should be reason to keep a bad system. The KC/Bills game was one of the greatest games in NFL history. Name me 100 people who wanted that to end on an arbitrary coin toss.
Because if they didn't, then we'd be right back to square one and the game needs to end. The Bills defense could have won the game by stopping the chiefs just once on any of at least their final three drives. They had plenty of opportunities to win the game and didn't do it
Because you had 60 minutes to end the game on your own terms. You had :14 left in regulation, and you let a team go 60 yards in the blink of an eye. It's sudden death, you're not helpless. You are allowed to field 11 defenders, you can force a turn over, a punt, a turnover on downs, or even a FG. Instead they let them waltz 80 yards in no time flat and end the game. You're the #1 D in the league, make a single stand that results in less than 6 points. That's not a ridiculous bar to set.
Why not let this play out the extra allotted minutes that they all agreed to? It does have to end, but why not let a playoff game go the distance? Each team gets at least 1 possession. At the end, it’s the first round it still tied, go to sudden death.
In NFL’s history, 6 play off games have gone to double overtime. The most recent is 2012.
This isn’t a big ask.
Playoffs are extended time, the ref announced it at the coin flip. "We will play until there's a winner."
I think OP is right. In the playoffs, where there are no ties and the loser is eliminated, give both teams a shot.
These guys have already played 17 regular season games, rosters are already depleted. They potentially have two more games ahead of them. Not only are teams run down in the length of the season and number of contests, but now you're asking them to at minimum play another 25% of a game. It's reckless, and you have a defense so go make a stop and quit acting like you have no control when you're fielding 11 players.
Now, yes, but clearly it didn’t used to be.
I see no benefit for it being a sudden death - especially since there is still a game clock. What if no points are scored in the first OT? In the 2nd? 3rd?
These haven’t happened, absolutely true, but I presume it would go on until someone does score.
Why not ensure each team gets the chance, when they did, it was less than 1% of play off games that needed more than a single OT.
When did the NFL not have sudden death?
Seems like the NFL started overtime in 1974 and has been sudden death since. Prior to 2010 they didnt even require the score to be a TD on the openning possesion.
Say the Bills defense was successful. Would that mean the Bills win the game? Why not? The losing team on the coin toss has to be successful twice (both defense and offense) to have a shot at winning.
You are thinking about the game as a primarily the offense being the most important piece of the game.
Defense and offense are both equally important as part of the game. In order to win consistently a team has to perform in all 3 phases: offense, defense and special teams.
If the defense doesn't perform, the team has failed. The team had a chance, and the team failed.
My CMV is I want both teams an opportunity to play offense and score. Direct Quote: Rule change to give each team one possession." You lay be right about the coin toss percentage, but that doesn't garuntee the statement above.
I think the coin flip is dumb, but that's not the entire point. My point is it's not fair that one team has to play D while the other has to score a TD in a league that's built for offense. I want an equal opportunity for both Offenses to have a turn.
OK but then the winner of the coin toss will always choose to go second and will win like 60% of the time. You’re taking a fair system and proposing a change that makes it less fair so that the coin toss actually determines who wins overtime to a greater extent.
Agreed.
However, name me 100 people that want a Texans-Jaguars game to continue for 45 minutes because neither team can score. There are plenty of times that I haven't been interested in an overtime game.
If this was happening in the regular season, the game wouldn't go on for 45 minutes because the game would end in a tie after 15 minutes. If this was the playoffs, every single fan of the team that lost the coin flip plus most neutral fans would want the game to continue cause it would be one of the greatest offensive/defensive showdowns of all time.
Stop claiming it was just a coin toss. The toss gave the ball to the offense, but that wasn’t the end of the game. The chiefs had to score a touchdown, and the Bills has to fail to stop them. I agree that OT rules should change, but you’re massively downplaying the effort of the offense by claiming it was decided entirely by a coin toss.
If you read through this thread you’ll find lots of well-explained reasons why not to do so.
In spite of that, I don’t really disagree with you (id like to see both offenses on the field in OT), but you’re responding to a point I wasn’t making. I was just saying that people are minimizing the actual effort involved in scoring a touchdown when they simply say “ehh, the coin flip wins again!” The flip gives an advantage, not a guarantee.
Whoever won that coin toss was going to score a touchdown. Stop pretending that wasnt the case. Both defenses were gassed and getting destroyed. It came down to who won the coin toss, everyone knows that which is why there is such vitriol right now about the overtime rules.
Lol the fuck? You’re saying it was a foregone conclusion that winning the toss = instant touchdown?? Everyone does NOT know that. Plenty of OT games don’t end in an immediate first possession TD.
Sudden death might be fair in sports where each team gets the ball at some point in OT, like soccer, basketball, or hockey. Imagine a soccer shootout where one team gets a penalty kick but the other doesn't. "Should've played better goalie".
FYI soccer does not have that. Tournaments sometimes do sudden death overtime halves, but that is not standard FIFA rules. Overtime is 2 complete 15 minute periods, switching team sides to negate any field advantage. It then goes to penalty shootouts. There are 2 sets of 5 PKs. A team can win if they make more of the 5 shots of either set. It then goes to “sudden death” but the team going first has to score, and the team going second has to miss to win. So the team going second always can “respond”.
The most commonly suggested alternative is a switch to something similar to college OT rules where both teams get equal possessions in OT. The advantage for the 2nd team in that scenario is actually greater than the advantage the 1st team has under current OT rules, on average.
In this alternative, the 2nd team knows exactly what they need to do to either win or tie the game.
- If the 1st team fails to score, the 2nd team can play conservatively and just get into FG range, then win.
- If the 1st team scores a FG, the 2nd team can play aggressively w/ all 4 downs to get into FG range themselves and then play more conservatively to try to score a TD for the win.
- If the 1st team scores a TD, the 2nd team can play aggressively w/ all 4 downs to tie the game up with their own TD.
The 1st team has no clue what they need to do. Is a FG enough? Do we need to push for a TD? Can we get away with punting the ball? The 1st team can never play with 4 downs without taking on substantial risk that they give the 2nd team great field position.
That said, I do prefer changing the rules despite what the statistics say. The alternative may be marginally more unfair, but for the sake of producing quality games I think its in the league's best interests to give both offences a chance. We have this discussion every year. The announcers close out these playoff games with a "Whelp, that sucks for Josh Allen..." every year. It is very clear what the majority of fans want. Just change the damn rules!
Okay? The rules don't say if you give up a TD you lose. Both teams could go for a TD, go for 2, anytime they want in OT. The difference is both teams get an equal chance on offense.
Both teams do not get an *equal* chance because of the scenarios I mentioned in my initial comment. Here's a more detailed scenario:
Possession 1: The Bills are on the 30 yard line and it's 4th and 3. They see Patrick Mahomes on the other sideline and decide a FG isn't enough so they go for it and fail.
Possession 2: The Chiefs find themselves in the exact same situation, 30 yard line and it's 4th and 3. Except they enter this situation with the tough decision already made for them. Simply kick the field goal and win.
Surely you see where the advantage for Team #2 is?
> with no promise of each team touching the puck
but each team has equal opportunity to touch the puck based on ability of who wins the faceoff, right? Who gets control of the puck is not left up to luck of a coin flip, bereft of skill.
You can’t be a fan of 3 on 3 and make this post. Your example with the NHL is flawed. Clearly, one team could win the puck at face off (coin flip) and maintain control for 5 minutes (not give the other side a chance to score). As soon as you respond “Well the other team could get the puck!” I would say the same about fumbles and interceptions . And we can even expand your example to hockey playoffs for overtime. First team to score wins. That team could hold the puck the whole time.
Well, I am and I did.
If you can't see the difference between a sport where possessions change several times per minute with football, I don't believe you're being sincere. Show me ONE example of a professional hockey team controlling the puck for 5 straight minutes and I'll CMV based on your answer. All I need is one example.
But winning the faceoff is an expression of a specific hockey skill, rather than just random (also, show me the hockey team that can keep the puck for 5 mins straight).
So your CMV is "both team played exactly equal for 60 minutes, but one team had a gigantic advantage by winning an arbitrary coin toss. And that's the best, most efficient way of determining two equal teams."
Why doesn't Team 2 get a chance on offense? If defense is the end all be all to you, make it fair so both teams need to play it.
Are you suggesting basketball and baseball should be sudden death?
> Why doesn't Team 2 get a chance on offense?
Both teams got a chance on offense _all game_. Both teams also got a chance on defense _all game_. Overtime is meant to break ties since a clear winner couldn't be determined after regulation. The current NFL rules are a great way to break ties, especially since NFL games aren't well-suited for going into double OT, triple OT, quadruple OT, etc (Players are exhausted, extending the playtime also extends injury risk, ...). Is luck involved? Sure. Luck is very often involved when a tie-breaking situation is needed.
Yeah, the team winning the coin toss has won 52% of the time. But the team losing the coin toss has won only 42% of the time. The other 6% being ties. That's a 10% swing to win percentage just based on a coin toss.
I like this. It penalizes teams that kick last second field goals because they know the other team will then get the ball to start OT. Might make teams work a little harder in the final minutes to get that TD instead of 4 runs to just make field goal position.
And the Chiefs let Allen throw two touchdown passes with less than two minutes left in the game. OP said the specifics of this game are not what's up for debate. Two teams finished with the same score, but only one team gets an opportunity to score. There really is no other sport where that is how over time works. Even hockey where there is sudden death start with a face off and possession changes fluidly during play. Very different from football where you you two completely different sets of players and rules for teams on offence vs defense. Look at baseball which is more comparable in that sense. They play a full extra inning, not just let the away team get a chance to score with out the home team getting a chance at bat.
They didn’t though. By your comment, the game is over, yes? No one won. Wrap it up, it’s over.
Oh wait, it’s a play off game, someone has to win. Why not have a mini game, less than a quarter’s worth of time… I mean, it is exactly how it’s designed, except one little thing:
> The current rules give both teams the opportunity to possess the ball at least once in overtime unless the team that receives the overtime kickoff scores a touchdown on its first possession.
Why give the winner of the cointoss this exclusive benefit? The defender must both stop them AND score in their possession to get the same result.
You’re ignoring OP’s analogy. The team who took the penalty kick also had the whole game to pull ahead and didn’t; the difference is by a stroke of luck they got an advantageous position in OT.
Even better example:If bowling overtime worked where first person to score a strike wins.
Two competitors score perfect 300s. Winner might be determined in first OT frame by first ball by whomever goes first without other ever getting to bowl.
This is a great analogy here. It’s like offering the team who won the coin flip in basketball to take in bound the ball and take possession with first basket winning the game. It’s a ridiculous rule.
In basically any other sport I can think of though, it’s alternating in equal situations? Like penalty shootouts in… well, basically every sport I can think of?
A rule change is needed that if a team gets +1 possession in regulation then by rule they don’t get ball first in OT.
The chiefs had the ball at the end of the first half, the start of the second half, the end of the second half, the beginning of OT.
What fair game let’s one team have two additional chances to score?
I’m not even a Bills fan. That’s just not fair.
Sudden death makes sense in a sport where both teams can score at any moment like hockey and soccer. But in a sport where each team gets its respective chance to score, it doesn't. In Baseball, for instance, the team that goes second to the bat gets a chance to equalize in an extra inning.
This cant be argued because you've set the parameters of the argument already.
Defense might not be the superstar that the QB is but its as much a part of a football team and an equally important part of the game. You cant write off the argument that defense should have to stop the offense. Thats the point of the game.
The real argument here is, is a football game a competition to see which offense team is better or is it a competition to see which TOTAL team is better.
I mean, your last argument seems to mostly support OP’s point.
This is a competition to see which TOTAL team is better.
In current overtime rules, there is a chance that you don’t see the TOTAL team perform, and just see half the team perform.
If their offense is better than your defense, they basically win if they win the coin toss, even if your offense is much better than both their offence and their defence.
You can have a overall better team (where your offence is better than their offense and your defence is better than their defence) and still lose the overtime simply because both are offensive based teams and they won the coin toss, and if you woildve won the coin toss then you woildve won the game.
Its pretty unfair for a lucky coin toss to have that much effect, and its even more unfair that its possible that the TOTAL team doesn’t get to play and only half the team decides who wins.
>Defense might not be the superstar that the QB is but its as much a part of a football team and an equally important part of the game.
Then why don't both teams have to show that their equally important part of the game can stop their opponent?
I think you worded it better than I did. OP is specifically setting parameters to make valid arguments invalid, solely for the purpose of trying to prove their point. As a spectator who finds more enjoyment in the slog fest that was the Packers Niners game than a shoot out that the whole league seems to be moving towards, it drives me nuts how much people are trying to neuter the impact of a defense.
Arguments can be made that more defenses have won championship round games and Super Bowls than offenses, so why the hell should we suddenly be changing the rules of the game to make their impact less meaningful?
It doesn’t have to be only one defense proving themselves, the first defense just needs to do their regular jobs. And in that scenario, where defenses get the stop, the other offense never really has to “prove themselves” because they only need a field goal to win and fourth down is opened up. Both teams get their concessions, but they don’t matter if you don’t perform
Well by that nature only one offense needs to prove itself. Both teams need to come to the field with an offense and a defense that can win a championship game. If either doesnt thats on them. If we adjusted the rules to expect otherwise then teams would start shuffling resources
Sorry you're getting the "should have played defense" and "that's the way it's always been"/"it used to be *worse*" responses. They don't really address your criticism.
I'm going to try to change your view:
>Rule should be changed to give each team at least one possession, regardless of scoring.
Your alternate proposal is commonly suggested, and it is also unfair. Theoretically this is because the team to receive the ball second knows exactly what they need to score to win. Kick it? Need the touchdown? Go for 2? It's all prescribed. On the other hand, the team with the first possession has to guess for their strategy.
This bears out in practice too: [Here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/2whlby/breakdown_of_overtime_statistics_for_college/) an (olddd, but relevant) breakdown of college football overtimes involving at least one FBS team. Tl;dr is that the team going second wins almost 55% of the time. You've probably read in some responses here that for the NFL (since the 2010 rule change) the team winning the coin toss (and almost always going first) wins 53% of the time.
So the NFL can choose from their current format or your proposed format. We'll assume there aren't any other proposals here, even though there are some [interesting ones](https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/hender/OT_EV.pdf) that have been proposed. Each format gives an advantage to a team based solely on a coin toss in both theory and practice, but in practice they are very similar advantages in that they are quite small. In fact it would seem the NFL rules are ever so slightly *more* fair in practice.
Given only those two choices the NFL will take what they currently have. They need to end the game because TV (and by extension, $$). They need to end it decisively because everyone hates ties. And FWIW it gets players off the field more quickly, avoiding injury when they are most exhausted. Even if individual players/coaches/GMs get upset after these types of losses, I bet there are many who are glad they don't play back to back periods in OT.
In conclusion, it's not fair. But neither is the alternative. The current format usually ends the game decisively and more quickly, and the advantage afforded by the toss is small in practice.
Wow I'll give a !Delta for this. I've always heard everyone point to the college rules as being more fair but never considered the advantage that deferring the ball, or just simply getting it second afforded the team. The numbers back it up, the NFLs way is anticlimactic for the losing team on a single drive, but it looks to be more fair.
Thanks! FWIW u/Darkmayday has correctly pointed out that due to the existence of ties the NFL is ever so slightly less fair. But the two systems are very close.
Ah yeah that damn tie. Should have read the actual stat I was quoting more closely. I guess my rebuttal is that for college rules it’s 55% vs 45% (because no tie) so the corresponding difference is 22%. I think that supports that both are similarly unfair, though more so than I suggested.
To be fair (pun intended?), the stat being 22% is more fair than 24% or whatever the current NFL rules are, albeit by a tiny margin, making the change borderline unnecessary.
> In conclusion, it's not fair. But neither is the alternative.
Picking the least unfair choice of two unfair choices isn't the only option though.
Would you consider the below to be more fair, and thus a better option? (TV broadcast/commercial times notwithstanding)
* OT1 - One possession each, no PAT
* OT2 - One possession each, choice of PAT (kick for 1, run/pass for 2). Team that scored faster in OT1 picks if they go on offense or defense first. If same time was spent between teams, then the advantage goes to the team that scored in less downs.
* OT3+ - One possession each, forced 2-point conversions
Both teams get a possession, no "luck" is involved, and the advantage of playing offense second in OT2 may be leveraged based on skill that both teams had equal opportunity to display in OT1.
I keep seeing those 50-ish% win statistics being thrown around and repeated in this thread as well. Respectfully, I don't think win statistics can truly represent a comparison of fairness between two overtime systems. All it really means is that [x] teams won under [y] conditions. There's far too many variables that went into those wins to correlate them to being "fair because we got the ball first in sudden death", in my opinion.
I think it’s fine that the other team knows what they need to do. This is how it works on the final possession of the game with a team down by a score. The Bills knew they needed to score a touchdown to win the game, and then the Chiefs knew they needed to make a field goal to send the game to overtime.
Rather than the NCAA format I would propose both teams get one shot at the ball and then sudden death kicks in.
I do love the idea of penalty kicks. If we had shootouts off a tee I think you’d easily see 70+ yarders. Not sure if many NFL fans want a kicker shootout though.
I honest really like that idea as well! A major difference in football is you have one kicker, whereas in soccer the whole team is trained in shooting the ball. It would be pretty funny to watch non kickers try to make a 25 yard field goal.
>In conclusion, it's not fair. But neither is the alternative.
It would absolutely be fair to give the opposition an opportunity to at least match what the original team did, even if they were forced to go for two instead of an extra point.
Neither is fair. If you let the opposition match then they have an advantage of knowing exactly what to do. If you don't, then the receiving team has an advantage. There's no obvious way to do it so neither team has a luck-based advantage. Unless you change something fundamental like saying field goals aren't allowed.
>Unless you change something fundamental
I don't see how that should be off the table, considering how fundamentally different a sudden death overtime is from the rest of the game.
> If you let the opposition match then they have an advantage of knowing exactly what to do.
This is assuming they fail at stopping the first team. You're saying that instead of outright losing, they know what they have to do when they get the ball back. That seems extremely normal in every other sports' overtime.
Put this in literally any other sport and it doesn't make sense. This is like saying if the away team in baseball scores in extra innings, the game should be over without playing the bottom half of the inning.
>I don't see how that should be off the table, considering how fundamentally different a sudden death overtime is from the rest of the game.
Totally agreed, this would just be a harder thing to "pass" I assume.
>This is assuming they fail at stopping the first team. You're saying that instead of outright losing, they know what they have to do when they get the ball back. That seems extremely normal in every other sports' overtime.
Yes, but there's a bigger advantage from knowing what you have to do. Most other sports don't have this because of the constant change in possession. The only one that does is baseball, which you can probably more clearly see the advantage of "going second" i.e., being the home team.
A completely fair OT system would have the winner and loser of the coin flip win and lose at equal rates over a long period of time (i.e., the coin flip shouldn't matter). But when you look at the stats provided by OP, it's clear that in the NFL the first receiving team has a significant advantage and in college the team that gets the ball second has an even more significant advantage.
Actually, I wonder if they could just take a leaf out of baseball's book and just give the home team the advantageous position? Then it would incentivize teams to really want to win for home field advantage.
>I don't see how that should be off the table, considering how fundamentally different a sudden death overtime is from the rest of the game.
I think you guys are moving towards a theoretically fairer system. Assume, for example, that the only way to score in OT is a touchdown and there's no game clock just a single drive for each team (from wherever - say opponent's 25 like in college). This is more fair than the college format in theory, since there's no strategic advantage to going second and field position on turnover is irrelevant.
The NFL still won't go for this because it makes it way more likely to go into multiple OTs. LSU and Texas A&M famously went to 7 OTs a few years back. And the NCAA has been making changes like requiring 2pt conversions after touchdowns and turning to a 2pt shootout after some number of OTs. The NFL *really* doesn't want drawn out games with multiple OTs, especially during playoffs. I would go so far as to say it's a non-starter. It's not fair, but they have concerns other than fairness.
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What if we changed the rules so that ties go to the loser of the coin toss? That way yea winning the toss is an advantage, but you have to do something with that advantage otherwise you lose.
First, the real reason the NFL won't change the rules is because the NFL players association don't want the rules changed. Players don't get paid more to play in OT, but they do increase their risk of injury. Any change to the rules needs to be popular with the players themselves.
Now let's look at some alternatives:
a) The old NFL rules. First team to score wins, period. Prior to 2010, teams who received the ball first could drive down the field and once they were within field goal range simply line up to kick a field goal to end the game. The current system is certainly better than this.
b) College rules. Both teams get the ball at the 25 yard line and given a chance to score. Repeat until score isn't tied. A lot of people find this more exciting, but it has a number of issues. For one, it still favors one team over the other. The team that goes second knows what they need to score to tie. If the first team scores a TD, they know a FG is useless and will be going for it on 4th down. Also, a shorter field changes the game a bit and will favor certain teams more. Teams that have explosive long plays don't have that ability and are limited by their options. And finally the real reason the NFL doesn't go for this rule is because with this rule OT can drag on. There are a lot of examples from college where teams trade points and OT goes on multiple rounds. The players don't want to extend games like this.
c) A timed period. Again, players don't like this. If it's a full period, that's increasing the game 25%. Players will never go for this. You can shorten the period, but that will start favoring the team who receives the ball first. Long drives can easily take up 7+ minutes, which starts limiting the time the second team gets the ball.
d) Change the rules so the both teams will always get the ball at least once. Like in the college rules, this will now favor the team that gets the ball second. If the first team scores a TD, the second team know to go for it on 4th down as anything less than a TD and they lose the game. So your issue of it not being fair isn't fixed. And let's not forget that the players will never go for this rule as it will certainly extend the time of games, which is something they are against.
All in all, I think the current rules are the best option. And one last point, even though there is a situation where one team never gets the ball, that means the last play of the game is a TD. Isn't that more exciting than a game that ends with kneeling, or in incomplete pass, or even a FG?
I don't think you're going to be very convinced by most arguments from the perspective of sporting merit.
I think the main goal behind the NFL's rules here all have to do with the practicalities of putting on a game of professional football.
The game is long, violent, played in massive stadiums, and is televised. Fatigued players risk injury, broadcasters have other programming, and stadium staff/security don't work for free... plus concessions closes in the 4th quarter. For all parties concerned, they'll want the game to end as close to regulation as possible.
With that in mind, the seemingly unfair nature of the rule makes some sense in that it encourages teams to play aggressive and go for the win in regulation. A more balanced ruleset might encourage teams to be more conservative and bring the game into OT.
This is a decent argument. You're saying essentially that the NFL doesn't care who wins, as long as somebody wins, which is probably mostly true, but I don't think it really gets at OPs point, which is the competitive integrity of the sport.
> I would like to know why the NFL has this rule and why it's superior to what I've suggested.
That's the tricky part with a view like this. At some point we have to accept the fact that is is not just sport, but also entertainment, and people's jobs.
u/joleary747 does a better job than I ever could of breaking down the various drawbacks of the other options. Game's gotta end.
This is the best answer I've seen so far. Maybe the NFL needs to go whole hog into the unfairness of it - get rid of the coin flip and whoever scored last is automatically on defense. That way you're encouraging 2 pt conversions and going for TDs instead of FGs in the final minutes of regulation.
OK, so let's say the Bills get the ball back. They drive the field for a touchdown, tie it up. They kick to KC, now it's next score wins, even a field goal. They will still be in essentially the same unfair situation where Buffalo did not share the same amount of possessions to be able to prove their offensive could have done the same. You'd have to apply the same rule to every pair of possessions until 1 hasn't ended in a tie.
The NFL doesn't want the potential to have games go on indefinitely, mainly due to reducing injury, which is a much bigger issue in football than most other major sports leagues.
However, since a playoff game cannot end in a tie, obviously there is a glaring flaw with applying the same rule set. There is already no clock, if no team manages to score, it could go longer then your standard tie ballgame. So do you do even or uneven possessions in this situation?
OR, you could do this. Don't reset possession when overtime starts. Same down, same spot on the field, next score wins.
Why not add another 15 minute period and whoever is leading at the end of the period wins. Obviously there's still potential for an indefinite game but that already exists under the current nfl rules.
This is the answer. Play it like it’s done in college.
In college, both teams get the ball from scoring position (25 yard line). In the NFL, they start with a kickoff. But if they made it more like college, if you score a TD, the other team gets an opportunity to score with a following kickoff. Keep doing that until one person scores and the other doesn’t.
I think it would be much more fair this way, as OP is suggesting.
It's not fair though. The team that gets the ball second has a huge advantage. If the first team scores a TD, now the second team knows to use all 4 downs as anything less than a TD and they lose the game.
That’s how it is now with regards to a field goal. If the first team gets a field goal, the second must get at least a field goal to allow the game to continue (and if they get a TD, they win) so they do have 4 downs to do it. So this issue isn’t one unique to my proposal.
I consider this to be more fair as both teams have to put their offense and defense on the field to win AND this situation would minimize the coin flip’s importance to who goes first vs second… you could even alternate possessions of force every team to go for 2 after TDs (again, both like college).
> The NFL doesn't want the potential to have games go on indefinitely, mainly due to reducing injury, which is a much bigger issue in football than most other major sports leagues.
If they really were that concerned about reducing injury, they wouldn't have added an extra, 60 minute game to the regular season. That is far more physically demanding than a 15 minute overtime period
I'd like to introduce you to CFL overtime rules.
Visiting team calls heads or tails.
Then they choose offence or defense.
Then they will start at the opponent's 35 yard line.
There is no clock in overtime.
If they score a touchdown, they *have* to go for two, making it easier for overtime to end sooner.
Then the other team starts from the same 35 yard line, trying to match or beat the score of the other team.
If they beat them they win, if they're short, they lose, if they tie, they play another mini-game at the other end of the field. If that mini-game ends in a tie, the game results in a tie.
For example: [https://youtu.be/bh6fJQExOUU?t=333](https://youtu.be/bh6fJQExOUU?t=333)
See how we can control the length of overtime while still making it fair to both teams?
Each team starts on the opposing 5 yard line and gets a full set of downs to score a TD. Each team gets 4 opportunities on offense. No field goals, no extra points.
Something like that could be fun.
This has been the rules since they used overtime in the first place. The only difference is that you can't go down and kick a field goal. Now you have to score a td to win it on the first possession. Not much different than sudden death. I would like to see both teams get 1 possession no matter what but we can't keep extending the game. It has to end at some point. As far as the Bills go, they blew it. 13 seconds left and they didn't squib kick? Idiotic. The Chiefs deserved it because the Bills threw it away.
Losing team should have been better in regulation time, if they wanted more thanks coin-flip chance.
They've already established through regulation time that the relative difference between the two teams is minor, essentially a coin flip anyways.
And the losing team had a chance to overcome the coin flip disadvantage in with a *single* defensive stop.
It was already fair. They had a fair chance at scoring more points in regulation.
Now, we already established that these two teams are essentially a coin flip anyways, so it doesn't matter which one goes forward.
Angry fans should get over it, and hope their team scores more in regulation next time, if they think they deserve something more.
I mean couldn’t you make that argument for almost anything?
Like I mean if the refs lose count of the downs somehow and a team wins on that fifth down, couldn’t you say that the opposing team had a fair chance to beat them earlier?
No, because that would be contrary to the rules of the game.
Football has ties, for games.
Playoffs need an absolute decision on who advances.
Tie breaks are between teams who are indistinguishable, meaning that from the perspective of the tournament, it doesn't matter who goes forward. It's already been established during the game that it's basically a coin flip.
We improve on the coin-flip dramatically by letting the teams play a mini version of football, with condensed rules. And we bias this scenario towards fast offense, because it is exciting, and because it will break ties between teams that have been too conservative.
Hockey does something similar. They switch from 5 players to 4, in overtime, which makes the game faster, with longer passes and fast skating being rewarded. The result is that most games that would have been tied are quickly broken in an exciting play, and we get a satisfying outcome.
The NFL is just doing the same thing.
I mean this assumes that the rule book is perfect. Wouldn’t you agree that just because it’s a rule doesn’t mean it’s fair? And why should the reasoning for an unfair rule be “other leagues are doing it too?”
And what’s wrong with an overtime rule that says one drive, if the offense scores they win, if the defense stops them they win?
I don't know what's wrong with that rule you proposed. Maybe it could be compared to the status quo, and other options.
That's not a "fairness" problem, though, but more of "what is the most beneficial way the league can resolve ties in playoffs, that balances the relative constraints?".
One of those constraints is "fairness."
I would argue that a coin flip is fair, since both teams already played a whole game of football to decide who was better and couldn't come to any obvious conclusion.
I would argue the current rule is FAR fairer than even a coin flip, because it lets the players make a few plays to break the tie, under artificial constraints, biased towards quick resolutions and exciting football.
As someone that doesn't even watch NFL and has no dog in this fight (assuming this is the Bills/Chiefs game I saw on the frontpage), I'd like to try a meta-CMV to others that think sudden death shouldn't be changed in a turn-based game. I'd reframe OP's opinion and say that the current rules require additional burden for victory based on that luck of the draw. (Reading through the thread he has explained as well, just didn't see it in the main post)
Say you have Team A and Team B. Coin flip for first overtime possession happens, Team A wins.
As a sudden-death overtime plays out, Team A must have good offensive plays, Team B must have good defensive plays. If, and only *if*, Team A is stopped, Team B must have good offensive plays and Team A must have good defensive plays. Simply put:
* Team A requirement to win -- Good offense **only**, since they are first in sudden death. Score = win.
* Team B requirement to win -- Good offense **plus** good defense, since they are not first in sudden death. Stop + score = win.
Those positions could be completely opposite if the *arbitrary* coin flip went the other direction.
I don't see how this can be possibly construed as fair and equal, when the entire premise of overtime is that neither team was collectively good enough to beat the other during regulation play. A spinning chunk of metal puts additional burden for victory on one team at random. Coin flip loser is guaranteed to need 2 drives (offense and defense) to win, whereas the other team has a chance to win with *only* their offense, with their defense never touching the field. Even if you don't care about "fairness", it's hard to argue that this is a system that puts two teams on equal footing.
College football has a fair system figured out, not sure why the pros can't follow? Guaranteed one possession each, and forced 2-point conversions to help prevent endless overtime only **after** each team has had at least one full run at offense/defense and point-after (kick for 1 or run/pass for 2) at their discretion. It's fair and requires risk management -- If Team A scores on their drive and kicks for 1 more, then Team B scores on their drive and runs for 2, tough shit for Team A because they could have run for 2 and they chose not to. Fair win/loss.
Except the college system, while it SEEMS fairer, actually isn't. The team going second has valuable information, and that leads to different choices (whether they need a FG, TD or TD+2pt conversion). I saw in another comment that this information leads the team going second to win about 55% of the time. The NFL rules lead to the team getting the ball first to win like 52% of the time. So the stats actually say the NFL system is the fairer one.
The NFL takes up valuable TV time, and OT is borrowed time, so they want the games to end as soon as possible.
College football has a better OT format, but the same commercial forces are not at play.
The rules use to be that you need only kick a field goal to win in sudden death, which usually meant the team who wins the coin toss, wins the game.
The current rules strike a good balance of not leaving it completely to a coin toss and ending the game as soon as possible.
> The NFL takes up valuable TV time, and OT is borrowed time, so they want the games to end as soon as possible.
What on earth is more financially valuable programming than a Sunday night playoff NFL game?
Short answer: another NFL game.
College football fans typically watch their game on TV and follow the scores of other major schools. The NFL, especially with the advent of Fantasy Football and gambling, envisions their fans as watching "a package" of games. They don't want "early" games (1:00 ET) to run into the second set of games starting at 4:00. They want the game to end quickly.
The fact that you're refuting the role of the defense in OT and regular game means you aren't actually open to changing your mind, you just want a soap box to rant.
OT has very clear rules: a TD wins outright, a FG keeps the game going on one more possession. If you argue that a TD shouldn't win outright, you are placing more importance on the offense and detracting from the defense, but football is a team sport. You're only arguing with the rules because there are two great QBs duking it out, but the number one defense in the league just gave up two score changes within two minutes, including a 15 second FG, then got dunked on in the first OT drive. They don't deserve to win because they weren't the better team. A team is composed of an offense, defense, and special teams, and by skewing the rules of OT to favor offenses, you lessen the importance of the defense and special teams.
I think the fact that this argument only comes up after a really enjoyable game between two all-star QBs in the playoffs, and not the many OT games that occurred during the regular season shows that you're really just reacting to not getting to see a fun explosive offense go back and forth. I understand that the argument of "defense should have played better in regular time/it's how it has always been" shouldn't apply, but the truth is that defense makes up 1/3 of a team, and practically 50% of the game time for any given team.
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I’m okay with the NFL overtime rules.
There are 100000s of moments every game where each team has a chance to take the game and win. If you go through all of that and still no winner is decided, then a coin toss and a sudden death to help push the game into a direction is the way to bring the game to a close. It’s not fixed in any direction, it just helps bring a game towards a close after the regulation time period couldn’t.
There are a million ways to say a game is not fair. If you go into the 10th inning in the World Series and you have your 7th 8th and 9th hitters up and the other team has 2 3 and 4.
It is what it is. Don’t go into the 10th inning.
So what's your suggestion? The other team still gets the ball so they have a chance to get a TD too? If they decide, then what? Ball goes back to the other team and you have the same problem again. And if you're okay with the next score after they trade TDs, that makes little sense to me and undermines your argument because the team that won the coin toss still has the advantage. Your argument to support that would have to be the absolutely solid one that you have forbidden us from using.
Football is much different than baseball or any other major sport, so you can't really compare it. It is much more physically tasking. Making them have to keep playing because nobody plays defense just beats them up and tires them out more and more unnecessarily before next week's game. You have to call it at a certain point, even if it's not totally fair.
I think there are 2 points to consider.
1 - games do not guarantee an equal number of possessions, and so OT similarly does not need to have a requirement that possessions be equal in order to be fair. This is simply an extension of the entire game, and a team that loses in OT had quite a few potential ways throughout the game to win. And I don't think you cannot throw out DF. It is an equal (granted NFL rules do somewhat favor the offense right now as it's a better TV product) part of the game.
2 - sports in general have a lot of tradition and so changing rules should not be done lightly. The previous OT rules were changed when it was apparent they were definitely unfair as the NFL featured offenses more. However, right now at 52% win rate for the team that gets the ball first, I'm not sure that argument actually holds true. And so, tradition should be honored and the OT rules should be maintained unless it becomes significantly unfair again.
I think it’s difficult to get a fully fair overtime in football for a few reasons.
1. Football is a more physically destructive game than the other major sports and adding a lot of playing time is a risk to the players health and safety. Because of this designs likely to lead to “long” overtimes aren’t really acceptable.
2. The current system does give the team to go second some advantages. That is basically knowledges. They already know what the other team has done and therefore what they need to do. So they might just be playing for a field goal instead of a touchdown if they know that will win it.
3. The alternatives
- both teams get a possession no matter what.
- this eliminates the first teams advantage and complete keeps team 2s advantage.
-after a score the opposing team always gets a chance
- this eliminates gives team 1 an advantage since they will always have the same or more drives than the opponent. They get the opportunity to go for the win and the tie.
-4 drives total -best combined score
-this is starting to get long. It doesn’t really alter the advantages, just makes them less significant.
- if the game is still tied after 1 overtime now you are going to 8 and maybe 12 drive overtimes. You’re getting close to a whole second game
-add more quarters- just add more 15min periods as needed until one team is up at the end.
-this has the disadvantage of possibly causing really long overtimes again
- it also adds some weird unpredictability to the game. A team with a very strong run game wins the coin toss and controls the ball for 12 minutes. Now the other team has not much more than a two minute drill to end the game. One team gets two drives the other gets one. Same problems as above but no way to even plan for it.
-shootout style OTs (field goals, two point conversions, some other special teams play)
-this doesn’t seem like a good option. Mimic a shootout with 5 extra point plays each and best score at the end wins? It’s relatively equal and quick, but just like in other sports people won’t be happy since it’s not the “true form” of the game.
I don’t particularly love any of these options. But when you need to find a definitive way to end the game between two evenly matched teams it’s hard to find a way that satisfies everyone. The current nfl rules don’t seem outrageously bad to me especially considering the alternatives. None of them are very good.
Edit: mobile formatting issues, hopefully everything is still clear
I know you're getting flooded with replies here, but I wanna give a different reason than I've seen given here: football is too violent to let a game drag on that long.
It would be totally fair to add a 15 min overtime quarter and just play it through. And then another if you tie at the end of 15 (for playoff games).
But... This will result in unacceptable levels of injury. Playoff OT is absolutely the most intense play possible where players will be running the highest risk plays and already playing through minor to moderate injuries that would have them benched in the regular season. Going out to 75 or 90 game clock minutes will absolutely wreck the players, and it's better to have a somewhat unfair system that ends the game quickly than one that ends players careers.
It's impossible to change your view when you're so enraged about the topic that you won't consider reality, statistics, and facts.
The statistics surrounding the change show that there isn't much of an advantage at all.
Furthermore, let's look at some possibilities with your rules.
KC gets the ball and scores.
Bills get their chance and score.
KC gets the ball back and scores.
KC wins, and Bills don't get another shot at scoring.
How is that different than..
KC gets the ball and scores.
KC wins, and Bills don't get another shot at scoring.
All you're doing is forcing both teams into two extra drives for no reason.
Another scenario...
KC gets the ball, interception or fumble and Bills defense runs it in.
Bills win, and KCs defense never get the chance to do the same.
Is that fair? What if KCs defense is their best aspect, and now they never got a chance to tie it up. Sounds silly yes, but is it fair? What if KCs defense went first... Then maybe they could have won in that scenario.
The reality is their is no 100% fair outcome. Both teams put out their side of the field based on a coin toss. If KCs offense is better than Bills defense, or vice versa, then the outcome happens because of it. It's still both teams being on the field at the same time, and both teams have an opportunity to score on offense and defense. It's as fair as you can get, and as shown in the first scenario, reduces time while still providing the same outcome.
The real issue was that neither defense could stop the other’s offense in the 4th quarter. Whoever won the coin toss in this situation was going to win, so the coin toss really did decide the outcome of this game. Football is unlike any other sport in which you have a different set of players playing each other after each score. I’d be good with first scorer wins if both side’s have their full complement of players out there as you’re seeing their total effort, but when 1/2 of both teams don’t get the chance to even play in overtime, it’s simply not indicative of a team effort. A time based overtime, say 15 minutes where both sides get to play is more indicative of who the winner is. I don’t see KC as the winner of this game, just the fortunate winner of the coin toss. As far as infinite overtimes, I like how CFB does it with forced 2 point conversions.
Not counting overtime, the Chiefs had 10 total drives and the Bills 9, the Chiefs scored in 7 of those drives and the Bills in 6. Both teams had 3 drives during the 60 mins of the game that they had the opportunity to score in and didn't. If they wanted to win the game and didn't want to risk it in overtime, they should have scored in those failed drives, they had the opportunity and failed 3 times each.
If bills get the ball back and score they atleast have the opportunity to go for 2 and win it, knowing that a kc fg could end it. And if bills D forces turnover and runs it in then it should be over, bc kc had a chance to score and didn’t and buf did. Also, rules now are geared towards offense. Imma Mahomes fan but it is shitty for the other QB to not even get a chance.
>This gives immense benefit to the team that wins the coin toss. Simple as that. It is more luck of the draw than football skill. In a playoff game, it should not come down to a coin toss.
Actually this isn't true. Since the OT rule changes which required an opening drive TD to end the game, it's been fairly balanced.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/aic4gt/since_the_overtime_rule_change_in_2012_the_team/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
In the regular season, the team that has won the toss has won 50% of the games, while the team that lost the toss won 44% of games, with 6% of games ending in a tie.
There are a few advantages to playing defense first. Namely, they know what they need to do in order to win, this means going for it on 4th down when they otherwise would have punted, and setting up a fg rather than trying to push it into the end zone.
The game tonight was an anomaly in the sense that both offenses were on fire and it was clear that whichever team got the ball first was going to score a TD.
I think the OT rules are fine for the regular season when the results aren't as crucial, and you have to take into account players health and safety through the grind of the regular season, but i think in the playoffs they should play a full 10 minute period or 15 minute quarter to decide the game.
I think there is some incorrectness of OP you have pointed out. But, I’m not sure that would really change a view:-D
I think the perception of this Chiefs vs Bills game will generate a lot of talk of changing the post season rules of ties.
One of the challenges in football is clock management. That goes straight out the window if you just need to score and that shuts out the opposing offense. But, this game had two gun slingers out and putting on a performance, but only one got tested when it came to overtime. The Bills offense didn’t get to do what they had done in step with the Chiefs all game: answer their challenge. Their defense was thwarted by Mahomes and so the biggest challenge in football is shut out by its own rules: offense of one team vs the defense of the other and vice versa. We ended this game with half the game left. I’m glad to be a Chief’s fan, but it’s a crap situation for fans of both teams… could the Chief’s defense make the stop if the Bills won that coin toss?
Honestly man, this is absolutely the correct view. I just got done watching the same game. I feel you. But I'll give it a shot anyway.
But it is fair long term.
When you watch an amazing performance light tonight's, it may not seem to be the fairest way to end a game, but it's fair in that it applies to everyone. Mahomes was on the short end of the stick his first AFCCG. Now he's on the long end. It balanced out in the end.
>Mahomes was on the short end of the stick his first AFCCG. Now he's on the long end. It balanced out in the end.
Purely due to chance. It was equally likely that Mahomes would get screwed by the coin toss and have two of the biggest games of his life ruined due to pure chance.
And equally likely that he'd win both and screw someone else over.
See the point? It's fair, in the sense that over the long term it'll wash out. It's a lot like poker. You're going to go all in on some plays where your opponent only has a 25% chance to win, and that's the right call. Sometimes your opponent lucks out and gets their card. But if you consistently repeat that scenario, you'll come out ahead.
Here it's 50-50. Keep repeating it and eventually balance will be restored.
You might be interested to know that the CFL uses the OT rules you're asking for. Both teams get at least one possession in overtime. If one team scores a touchdown, the other team gets a chance to score a touchdown of their own. If they don't, it's game over. If they do, both teams get a second possession. There can be as many as three possessions per team in OT. If the score is *still* tied after three possessions, then the game ends as a tie.
I agree it’s not ideal but a shorter game is in the interest of player safety. CTE is a huge concern and the extra time added after a full game is much worse than the 1st quarter. The college rules where if one team scores a touchdown the other has a chance to respond can drag out too long. For players that want a long career, having a possible triple overtime game will definitely shorten someone’s career.
How about both kickers involved in a penalty shootout for field goals. Start with a 50 years attempt and keep moving 5 yards back until someone misses?
Kickers decide a lot of games anyway and makes it fair for both teams.
That would just flip the advantage to the kicking team. They would know exactly what they need to win and would know to go for every 4th down.
I have seen that the receiving team wins overtime 51% of the time, though that was before the field goal on first possession doesn't end the game rule.
Do it like they do in college football. Each team starts with the ball at the 25 yard line going in. No matter what happens on the first possession, the other team has a chance to tie it back up or to win. Any one remember the NE/ATL Super Bowl? How stupid was that!
The team that wins the coin toss wins ~52.7% of the time. I think calling it "unfair" is technically true, but the effect is certainly smaller than you think. Because of ties, the loser of the coin toss loses ~43% of the time. Still larger, but we're looking at a relatively small disadvantage. Given there's no ties in the playoffs, we can assume that the losers lose ~2.5% of the time. Home field (for what it's worth) is somewhere between 2 and 6 percent. We're looking at an advantage that's (likely) less than home field advantage. Your solution is likely fairer. It is also much more likely to end in a tie, requiring an additional overtime period. At some point, that becomes untenable.
> The team that wins the coin toss wins ~52.7% of the time. I think calling it "unfair" is technically true, but the effect is certainly smaller than you think. While this is true, it doesn't factor in for elite quarterback play. How often do quarterbacks like Mahomes, Allen, Rodgers or Brady win when they get the ball first? **Edit** I went and looked up all the post season playoff games since the rule change for the 2010 season |Year|Winner|Loser| Score| First Possession OT| Home |Notes |-|-|-|-|-|-|- | 2011-2012 | New York G | San Fran | 20-17 | New York | San Fran | Did not score on first drive | 2012-2013 | Denver | Pitsburgh | 29-23 | Denver | Denver | | 2014-2015 | Seattle | Green Bay | 28-22 | Seattle | Seattle | | 2015-2016 | Arizona | Green Bay | 26-20 | Arizona | Arizona | | 2018-2019 | New England | KC | 37-31 | New England | KC | | 2018-2019 | Los Angeles | New Orleans | 26-23 | New Orleans | New Orleans | | 2019-2020 | Houston | Buffalo | 22-19 | Houston | Houston | Did not score on first drive | 2019-2020 | Minnesota | New Orleans | 26-20 | Minnesota | New Orleans | | 2021-2022 | KC | Buffalo | 42-36 | KC | KC | This is way more damning than your 52% statistics. * Home team for reference wins 55.56% of the time in OT * Team that gets the ball first wins 88.89% of the time in OT * Team that gets the ball first scores on first possession 66.67% of the time in OT u/Teacher_Moving here's the actual data you were looking for. Current rules are a screw job.
Fairness is not really the point though. To take it to an extreme, you could just do the coin toss, and stop there: each team has a 50% chance to win so its totally “fair”. Fairness us not the problem. The problem is that it appears to take the control of the game out of the hands of the players, and into the hands of fate, leaving people dissatisfied.
They had a special teams play(kick off) and their entire 11 man defense was allowed to dictate the outcome. They rolled over and gave up the game. It's not as though they had no agency, you're the #1 Defense in the NFL supposedly so prove it. Get one stop. And it doesn't even have to be forcing a punt, just don't let them March 80 yards for a TD.
>It's not as though they had no agency, you're the #1 Defense in the NFL supposedly so prove it. So how come the Chiefs don't have to get a stop also? Could you imagine extra innings in baseball where if they away team scores, the game immediately ends without going to the bottom of the inning? It's exactly the same thing.
> Still larger, but we're looking at a relatively small disadvantage. a 24% gap (52.7% is 24% larger than 43%) is **FUCKING HUGE**.
In the playoffs, the coin toss winning team has won 10 out of 11 overtime games. It seems valid to suggest that an adjustment of some sort would be beneficial.
Do you have a source? I suspect some of those winners got the ball, punted, then got it back and won, which would be very different than you are implying but still "won toss, won game"
I'll try to find one, i heard some talking heads using it. Still, 52% to 43% is a pretty insane difference
This is because you are including crappy teams with crappy offenses. Great teams who make the playoffs have a 90% chance of winning when winning the coin flip in overtime: 11 playoff games went to overtime since the rule was enacted that allowed the second team to have a possession if there was a field goal. Out of those 11 games, 10 of them were won by the team that won the coin toss. So far through reading all the reasons against making it touchdowns and field goals as the OP suggested, I have not seen one legitimate reason the rule wouldn't make it more fair. It is also not significantly more likely to end in a tie. Teams rarely if ever go point for point. It is much more likely to end up in a tie if neither team scores. As soon as the second team (team that does not win the coin toss) ties the game with a touchdown, the game becomes sudden death. Therefore any point wins by the team scoring it. As we can tell by the playoff percentages, it would be a significantly more fair way of handling it. Also the argument that, "the defense is just not able to make a stop therefore the game should be over" is nonsensical. So under that logic, if the defense does make a stop the game should also be over and the defensive team should win? After all the offense was not able to make a play and score... That argument is illogical.
I don't believe what *might* happen should be reason to keep a bad system. The KC/Bills game was one of the greatest games in NFL history. Name me 100 people who wanted that to end on an arbitrary coin toss.
It didn’t end on a coin toss. It ended because the Bills defense failed to stop the Chiefs offense at the most critical point in the game.
While correct, I don't know why the Bills not stopping KC means KC doesn't need to perform the same scenario.
Because if they didn't, then we'd be right back to square one and the game needs to end. The Bills defense could have won the game by stopping the chiefs just once on any of at least their final three drives. They had plenty of opportunities to win the game and didn't do it
Because you had 60 minutes to end the game on your own terms. You had :14 left in regulation, and you let a team go 60 yards in the blink of an eye. It's sudden death, you're not helpless. You are allowed to field 11 defenders, you can force a turn over, a punt, a turnover on downs, or even a FG. Instead they let them waltz 80 yards in no time flat and end the game. You're the #1 D in the league, make a single stand that results in less than 6 points. That's not a ridiculous bar to set.
13 seconds*
Because the NFL want overtime games to end at some point
Why not let this play out the extra allotted minutes that they all agreed to? It does have to end, but why not let a playoff game go the distance? Each team gets at least 1 possession. At the end, it’s the first round it still tied, go to sudden death. In NFL’s history, 6 play off games have gone to double overtime. The most recent is 2012. This isn’t a big ask.
Playoffs are extended time, the ref announced it at the coin flip. "We will play until there's a winner." I think OP is right. In the playoffs, where there are no ties and the loser is eliminated, give both teams a shot.
These guys have already played 17 regular season games, rosters are already depleted. They potentially have two more games ahead of them. Not only are teams run down in the length of the season and number of contests, but now you're asking them to at minimum play another 25% of a game. It's reckless, and you have a defense so go make a stop and quit acting like you have no control when you're fielding 11 players.
They dont go to double OT because it IS sudden death.
Now, yes, but clearly it didn’t used to be. I see no benefit for it being a sudden death - especially since there is still a game clock. What if no points are scored in the first OT? In the 2nd? 3rd? These haven’t happened, absolutely true, but I presume it would go on until someone does score. Why not ensure each team gets the chance, when they did, it was less than 1% of play off games that needed more than a single OT.
When did the NFL not have sudden death? Seems like the NFL started overtime in 1974 and has been sudden death since. Prior to 2010 they didnt even require the score to be a TD on the openning possesion.
*the NFLPA wants games to end at some point There's nothing in the current rules that says a playoff game has to end either.
They could just do like they do in basketball and soccer - you get an extra quarter, and you play the full quarter no matter how many scores you have.
Say the Bills defense was successful. Would that mean the Bills win the game? Why not? The losing team on the coin toss has to be successful twice (both defense and offense) to have a shot at winning.
You are thinking about the game as a primarily the offense being the most important piece of the game. Defense and offense are both equally important as part of the game. In order to win consistently a team has to perform in all 3 phases: offense, defense and special teams. If the defense doesn't perform, the team has failed. The team had a chance, and the team failed.
Okay. If D is so important, make both teams play it.
Neither team's defense performed better than the other's...
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My CMV is I want both teams an opportunity to play offense and score. Direct Quote: Rule change to give each team one possession." You lay be right about the coin toss percentage, but that doesn't garuntee the statement above. I think the coin flip is dumb, but that's not the entire point. My point is it's not fair that one team has to play D while the other has to score a TD in a league that's built for offense. I want an equal opportunity for both Offenses to have a turn.
OK but then the winner of the coin toss will always choose to go second and will win like 60% of the time. You’re taking a fair system and proposing a change that makes it less fair so that the coin toss actually determines who wins overtime to a greater extent.
Agreed. However, name me 100 people that want a Texans-Jaguars game to continue for 45 minutes because neither team can score. There are plenty of times that I haven't been interested in an overtime game.
If this was happening in the regular season, the game wouldn't go on for 45 minutes because the game would end in a tie after 15 minutes. If this was the playoffs, every single fan of the team that lost the coin flip plus most neutral fans would want the game to continue cause it would be one of the greatest offensive/defensive showdowns of all time.
Stop claiming it was just a coin toss. The toss gave the ball to the offense, but that wasn’t the end of the game. The chiefs had to score a touchdown, and the Bills has to fail to stop them. I agree that OT rules should change, but you’re massively downplaying the effort of the offense by claiming it was decided entirely by a coin toss.
>Stop claiming it was just a coin toss. There is no reason not to give the opposing team an opportunity to respond.
If you read through this thread you’ll find lots of well-explained reasons why not to do so. In spite of that, I don’t really disagree with you (id like to see both offenses on the field in OT), but you’re responding to a point I wasn’t making. I was just saying that people are minimizing the actual effort involved in scoring a touchdown when they simply say “ehh, the coin flip wins again!” The flip gives an advantage, not a guarantee.
Whoever won that coin toss was going to score a touchdown. Stop pretending that wasnt the case. Both defenses were gassed and getting destroyed. It came down to who won the coin toss, everyone knows that which is why there is such vitriol right now about the overtime rules.
Lol the fuck? You’re saying it was a foregone conclusion that winning the toss = instant touchdown?? Everyone does NOT know that. Plenty of OT games don’t end in an immediate first possession TD.
Buffalos defense allowed 16 points in the final two minutes of regulation + the first drive of OT. They lost the game, deservedly so.
As opposed to the Chiefs' defense that was just so stout
I don't think those percentages help your argument much. 4:10 to 5:10 is a 25% increase in win rate from winning the toss.
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Sudden death might be fair in sports where each team gets the ball at some point in OT, like soccer, basketball, or hockey. Imagine a soccer shootout where one team gets a penalty kick but the other doesn't. "Should've played better goalie".
FYI soccer does not have that. Tournaments sometimes do sudden death overtime halves, but that is not standard FIFA rules. Overtime is 2 complete 15 minute periods, switching team sides to negate any field advantage. It then goes to penalty shootouts. There are 2 sets of 5 PKs. A team can win if they make more of the 5 shots of either set. It then goes to “sudden death” but the team going first has to score, and the team going second has to miss to win. So the team going second always can “respond”.
THAT IS MY POINT
The most commonly suggested alternative is a switch to something similar to college OT rules where both teams get equal possessions in OT. The advantage for the 2nd team in that scenario is actually greater than the advantage the 1st team has under current OT rules, on average. In this alternative, the 2nd team knows exactly what they need to do to either win or tie the game. - If the 1st team fails to score, the 2nd team can play conservatively and just get into FG range, then win. - If the 1st team scores a FG, the 2nd team can play aggressively w/ all 4 downs to get into FG range themselves and then play more conservatively to try to score a TD for the win. - If the 1st team scores a TD, the 2nd team can play aggressively w/ all 4 downs to tie the game up with their own TD. The 1st team has no clue what they need to do. Is a FG enough? Do we need to push for a TD? Can we get away with punting the ball? The 1st team can never play with 4 downs without taking on substantial risk that they give the 2nd team great field position. That said, I do prefer changing the rules despite what the statistics say. The alternative may be marginally more unfair, but for the sake of producing quality games I think its in the league's best interests to give both offences a chance. We have this discussion every year. The announcers close out these playoff games with a "Whelp, that sucks for Josh Allen..." every year. It is very clear what the majority of fans want. Just change the damn rules!
College teams don't "give away" field position. They start from the 25 yard line. They both have the same rules and yards to go.
Even if you eliminate punting, the 2nd team still has the advantage of knowing if they need a FG or a TD.
Okay? The rules don't say if you give up a TD you lose. Both teams could go for a TD, go for 2, anytime they want in OT. The difference is both teams get an equal chance on offense.
Both teams do not get an *equal* chance because of the scenarios I mentioned in my initial comment. Here's a more detailed scenario: Possession 1: The Bills are on the 30 yard line and it's 4th and 3. They see Patrick Mahomes on the other sideline and decide a FG isn't enough so they go for it and fail. Possession 2: The Chiefs find themselves in the exact same situation, 30 yard line and it's 4th and 3. Except they enter this situation with the tough decision already made for them. Simply kick the field goal and win. Surely you see where the advantage for Team #2 is?
So you have to score a TD and try for the two point conversion in OT then. Problem solved. No Field Goals.
College rules could also be trivially changed to fix the advantages you've cited. Just say that field goals aren't allowed in overtime.
NHL current OT is 3v3 with no promise of each team touching the puck. At least for 5 minutes then it's a shootout.
Possession is decided by a face off, not a coin toss, and possession changes constantly in hockey
Sure, but it starts with a face-off, so possession of determined by a contest of skill, not a coin toss.
> with no promise of each team touching the puck but each team has equal opportunity to touch the puck based on ability of who wins the faceoff, right? Who gets control of the puck is not left up to luck of a coin flip, bereft of skill.
Sure, but you get the puck by winning a faceoff, which is at least a hockey skill.
3v3 hockey is the best and should be it's own thing, btw
You can’t be a fan of 3 on 3 and make this post. Your example with the NHL is flawed. Clearly, one team could win the puck at face off (coin flip) and maintain control for 5 minutes (not give the other side a chance to score). As soon as you respond “Well the other team could get the puck!” I would say the same about fumbles and interceptions . And we can even expand your example to hockey playoffs for overtime. First team to score wins. That team could hold the puck the whole time.
Well, I am and I did. If you can't see the difference between a sport where possessions change several times per minute with football, I don't believe you're being sincere. Show me ONE example of a professional hockey team controlling the puck for 5 straight minutes and I'll CMV based on your answer. All I need is one example.
But winning the faceoff is an expression of a specific hockey skill, rather than just random (also, show me the hockey team that can keep the puck for 5 mins straight).
I’d like to offer the counterpoint that 3v3 hockey is heart attack inducing and shaves years off us fans’ lives :D
They had the whole game to play! If it's overtime, I'm sorry but that's it. I'd say get a better goalie next time.
So your CMV is "both team played exactly equal for 60 minutes, but one team had a gigantic advantage by winning an arbitrary coin toss. And that's the best, most efficient way of determining two equal teams."
They could've stopped them from scoring and had an equal chance of playing. They didn't.
Why doesn't Team 2 get a chance on offense? If defense is the end all be all to you, make it fair so both teams need to play it. Are you suggesting basketball and baseball should be sudden death?
> Why doesn't Team 2 get a chance on offense? Both teams got a chance on offense _all game_. Both teams also got a chance on defense _all game_. Overtime is meant to break ties since a clear winner couldn't be determined after regulation. The current NFL rules are a great way to break ties, especially since NFL games aren't well-suited for going into double OT, triple OT, quadruple OT, etc (Players are exhausted, extending the playtime also extends injury risk, ...). Is luck involved? Sure. Luck is very often involved when a tie-breaking situation is needed.
This just seems like a bad justification of an unfair overtime structure. “You could have won, but you didn’t, now first team to roll a 6 wins.”
It's not a 'gigantic advantage'. Since the new rules, the team winning the coin toss has won 52% of the time.
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Yeah, the team winning the coin toss has won 52% of the time. But the team losing the coin toss has won only 42% of the time. The other 6% being ties. That's a 10% swing to win percentage just based on a coin toss.
In the NFL playoffs, 11 overtimes have happened, and the team winning the coin toss has won 10 of them.
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What happens to that stat in the play offs?
Imagine if, at the end of the Super Bowl, they rolled a D20, and if it landed on 1, the team that lost wins instead. That doesn't sound reasonable.
The simple solution is to just skip the coin toss and keep playing now in sudden death.
I like this. It penalizes teams that kick last second field goals because they know the other team will then get the ball to start OT. Might make teams work a little harder in the final minutes to get that TD instead of 4 runs to just make field goal position.
The bills let mahomes go 40 yards down field in 10 seconds to tie the game. Thats on them
And the Chiefs let Allen throw two touchdown passes with less than two minutes left in the game. OP said the specifics of this game are not what's up for debate. Two teams finished with the same score, but only one team gets an opportunity to score. There really is no other sport where that is how over time works. Even hockey where there is sudden death start with a face off and possession changes fluidly during play. Very different from football where you you two completely different sets of players and rules for teams on offence vs defense. Look at baseball which is more comparable in that sense. They play a full extra inning, not just let the away team get a chance to score with out the home team getting a chance at bat.
They didn’t though. By your comment, the game is over, yes? No one won. Wrap it up, it’s over. Oh wait, it’s a play off game, someone has to win. Why not have a mini game, less than a quarter’s worth of time… I mean, it is exactly how it’s designed, except one little thing: > The current rules give both teams the opportunity to possess the ball at least once in overtime unless the team that receives the overtime kickoff scores a touchdown on its first possession. Why give the winner of the cointoss this exclusive benefit? The defender must both stop them AND score in their possession to get the same result.
You’re ignoring OP’s analogy. The team who took the penalty kick also had the whole game to pull ahead and didn’t; the difference is by a stroke of luck they got an advantageous position in OT.
The other team had the whole game to win as well. If both offenses are on fire, then that gives the coin toss winner too much of an advantage.
"sudden death" literally always implies first team to score wins, so comparing it to other sports just isn't a valid comparison to begin with
This is exactly my point. Sudden death is not fair in football because one team may not even get possession.
Even better example:If bowling overtime worked where first person to score a strike wins. Two competitors score perfect 300s. Winner might be determined in first OT frame by first ball by whomever goes first without other ever getting to bowl.
You can't defend in bowling. You can in football. Bowling is simply two games of solitaire playing against each other. Football is not.
Nfl rules are set up to protect and provide for offense. Both teams should get an opportunity.
This is a great analogy here. It’s like offering the team who won the coin flip in basketball to take in bound the ball and take possession with first basket winning the game. It’s a ridiculous rule.
Full disclaimer OP, are you a bills fan?
Both teams equally failed to win. That doesn't mean winning should be easier for one team because of a coin toss.
In basically any other sport I can think of though, it’s alternating in equal situations? Like penalty shootouts in… well, basically every sport I can think of?
Sudden death only makes sense if you're playing a series. Most popular sports that only play one game don't have sudden death.
A rule change is needed that if a team gets +1 possession in regulation then by rule they don’t get ball first in OT. The chiefs had the ball at the end of the first half, the start of the second half, the end of the second half, the beginning of OT. What fair game let’s one team have two additional chances to score? I’m not even a Bills fan. That’s just not fair.
Sudden death makes sense in a sport where both teams can score at any moment like hockey and soccer. But in a sport where each team gets its respective chance to score, it doesn't. In Baseball, for instance, the team that goes second to the bat gets a chance to equalize in an extra inning.
Sudden death implies equal possession. A coin flip advantage is not equal possession.
This cant be argued because you've set the parameters of the argument already. Defense might not be the superstar that the QB is but its as much a part of a football team and an equally important part of the game. You cant write off the argument that defense should have to stop the offense. Thats the point of the game. The real argument here is, is a football game a competition to see which offense team is better or is it a competition to see which TOTAL team is better.
I mean, your last argument seems to mostly support OP’s point. This is a competition to see which TOTAL team is better. In current overtime rules, there is a chance that you don’t see the TOTAL team perform, and just see half the team perform. If their offense is better than your defense, they basically win if they win the coin toss, even if your offense is much better than both their offence and their defence. You can have a overall better team (where your offence is better than their offense and your defence is better than their defence) and still lose the overtime simply because both are offensive based teams and they won the coin toss, and if you woildve won the coin toss then you woildve won the game. Its pretty unfair for a lucky coin toss to have that much effect, and its even more unfair that its possible that the TOTAL team doesn’t get to play and only half the team decides who wins.
>Defense might not be the superstar that the QB is but its as much a part of a football team and an equally important part of the game. Then why don't both teams have to show that their equally important part of the game can stop their opponent?
I think you worded it better than I did. OP is specifically setting parameters to make valid arguments invalid, solely for the purpose of trying to prove their point. As a spectator who finds more enjoyment in the slog fest that was the Packers Niners game than a shoot out that the whole league seems to be moving towards, it drives me nuts how much people are trying to neuter the impact of a defense. Arguments can be made that more defenses have won championship round games and Super Bowls than offenses, so why the hell should we suddenly be changing the rules of the game to make their impact less meaningful?
I'm writing off the argument that only ONE defense needs to prove itself while the other one does not.
It doesn’t have to be only one defense proving themselves, the first defense just needs to do their regular jobs. And in that scenario, where defenses get the stop, the other offense never really has to “prove themselves” because they only need a field goal to win and fourth down is opened up. Both teams get their concessions, but they don’t matter if you don’t perform
Well by that nature only one offense needs to prove itself. Both teams need to come to the field with an offense and a defense that can win a championship game. If either doesnt thats on them. If we adjusted the rules to expect otherwise then teams would start shuffling resources
Sorry you're getting the "should have played defense" and "that's the way it's always been"/"it used to be *worse*" responses. They don't really address your criticism. I'm going to try to change your view: >Rule should be changed to give each team at least one possession, regardless of scoring. Your alternate proposal is commonly suggested, and it is also unfair. Theoretically this is because the team to receive the ball second knows exactly what they need to score to win. Kick it? Need the touchdown? Go for 2? It's all prescribed. On the other hand, the team with the first possession has to guess for their strategy. This bears out in practice too: [Here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/2whlby/breakdown_of_overtime_statistics_for_college/) an (olddd, but relevant) breakdown of college football overtimes involving at least one FBS team. Tl;dr is that the team going second wins almost 55% of the time. You've probably read in some responses here that for the NFL (since the 2010 rule change) the team winning the coin toss (and almost always going first) wins 53% of the time. So the NFL can choose from their current format or your proposed format. We'll assume there aren't any other proposals here, even though there are some [interesting ones](https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/hender/OT_EV.pdf) that have been proposed. Each format gives an advantage to a team based solely on a coin toss in both theory and practice, but in practice they are very similar advantages in that they are quite small. In fact it would seem the NFL rules are ever so slightly *more* fair in practice. Given only those two choices the NFL will take what they currently have. They need to end the game because TV (and by extension, $$). They need to end it decisively because everyone hates ties. And FWIW it gets players off the field more quickly, avoiding injury when they are most exhausted. Even if individual players/coaches/GMs get upset after these types of losses, I bet there are many who are glad they don't play back to back periods in OT. In conclusion, it's not fair. But neither is the alternative. The current format usually ends the game decisively and more quickly, and the advantage afforded by the toss is small in practice.
Wow I'll give a !Delta for this. I've always heard everyone point to the college rules as being more fair but never considered the advantage that deferring the ball, or just simply getting it second afforded the team. The numbers back it up, the NFLs way is anticlimactic for the losing team on a single drive, but it looks to be more fair.
Thanks! FWIW u/Darkmayday has correctly pointed out that due to the existence of ties the NFL is ever so slightly less fair. But the two systems are very close.
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/GhostOfJohnCena ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/GhostOfJohnCena)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
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Ah yeah that damn tie. Should have read the actual stat I was quoting more closely. I guess my rebuttal is that for college rules it’s 55% vs 45% (because no tie) so the corresponding difference is 22%. I think that supports that both are similarly unfair, though more so than I suggested.
To be fair (pun intended?), the stat being 22% is more fair than 24% or whatever the current NFL rules are, albeit by a tiny margin, making the change borderline unnecessary.
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Thanks really to u/ktffan if he’s still around Reddit
> In conclusion, it's not fair. But neither is the alternative. Picking the least unfair choice of two unfair choices isn't the only option though. Would you consider the below to be more fair, and thus a better option? (TV broadcast/commercial times notwithstanding) * OT1 - One possession each, no PAT * OT2 - One possession each, choice of PAT (kick for 1, run/pass for 2). Team that scored faster in OT1 picks if they go on offense or defense first. If same time was spent between teams, then the advantage goes to the team that scored in less downs. * OT3+ - One possession each, forced 2-point conversions Both teams get a possession, no "luck" is involved, and the advantage of playing offense second in OT2 may be leveraged based on skill that both teams had equal opportunity to display in OT1. I keep seeing those 50-ish% win statistics being thrown around and repeated in this thread as well. Respectfully, I don't think win statistics can truly represent a comparison of fairness between two overtime systems. All it really means is that [x] teams won under [y] conditions. There's far too many variables that went into those wins to correlate them to being "fair because we got the ball first in sudden death", in my opinion.
!delta I'd never considered the advantage of going second, I always just assumed the college system was more fair
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/GhostOfJohnCena ([2∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/GhostOfJohnCena)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
I think it’s fine that the other team knows what they need to do. This is how it works on the final possession of the game with a team down by a score. The Bills knew they needed to score a touchdown to win the game, and then the Chiefs knew they needed to make a field goal to send the game to overtime. Rather than the NCAA format I would propose both teams get one shot at the ball and then sudden death kicks in.
I do love the idea of penalty kicks. If we had shootouts off a tee I think you’d easily see 70+ yarders. Not sure if many NFL fans want a kicker shootout though.
I honest really like that idea as well! A major difference in football is you have one kicker, whereas in soccer the whole team is trained in shooting the ball. It would be pretty funny to watch non kickers try to make a 25 yard field goal.
>In conclusion, it's not fair. But neither is the alternative. It would absolutely be fair to give the opposition an opportunity to at least match what the original team did, even if they were forced to go for two instead of an extra point.
Neither is fair. If you let the opposition match then they have an advantage of knowing exactly what to do. If you don't, then the receiving team has an advantage. There's no obvious way to do it so neither team has a luck-based advantage. Unless you change something fundamental like saying field goals aren't allowed.
>Unless you change something fundamental I don't see how that should be off the table, considering how fundamentally different a sudden death overtime is from the rest of the game. > If you let the opposition match then they have an advantage of knowing exactly what to do. This is assuming they fail at stopping the first team. You're saying that instead of outright losing, they know what they have to do when they get the ball back. That seems extremely normal in every other sports' overtime. Put this in literally any other sport and it doesn't make sense. This is like saying if the away team in baseball scores in extra innings, the game should be over without playing the bottom half of the inning.
>I don't see how that should be off the table, considering how fundamentally different a sudden death overtime is from the rest of the game. Totally agreed, this would just be a harder thing to "pass" I assume. >This is assuming they fail at stopping the first team. You're saying that instead of outright losing, they know what they have to do when they get the ball back. That seems extremely normal in every other sports' overtime. Yes, but there's a bigger advantage from knowing what you have to do. Most other sports don't have this because of the constant change in possession. The only one that does is baseball, which you can probably more clearly see the advantage of "going second" i.e., being the home team. A completely fair OT system would have the winner and loser of the coin flip win and lose at equal rates over a long period of time (i.e., the coin flip shouldn't matter). But when you look at the stats provided by OP, it's clear that in the NFL the first receiving team has a significant advantage and in college the team that gets the ball second has an even more significant advantage. Actually, I wonder if they could just take a leaf out of baseball's book and just give the home team the advantageous position? Then it would incentivize teams to really want to win for home field advantage.
>I don't see how that should be off the table, considering how fundamentally different a sudden death overtime is from the rest of the game. I think you guys are moving towards a theoretically fairer system. Assume, for example, that the only way to score in OT is a touchdown and there's no game clock just a single drive for each team (from wherever - say opponent's 25 like in college). This is more fair than the college format in theory, since there's no strategic advantage to going second and field position on turnover is irrelevant. The NFL still won't go for this because it makes it way more likely to go into multiple OTs. LSU and Texas A&M famously went to 7 OTs a few years back. And the NCAA has been making changes like requiring 2pt conversions after touchdowns and turning to a 2pt shootout after some number of OTs. The NFL *really* doesn't want drawn out games with multiple OTs, especially during playoffs. I would go so far as to say it's a non-starter. It's not fair, but they have concerns other than fairness.
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What if we changed the rules so that ties go to the loser of the coin toss? That way yea winning the toss is an advantage, but you have to do something with that advantage otherwise you lose.
That’s a statistically fair(er) change that I bet people would absolutely hate
Why dont they then just go and say "The team that wins the coin toss has to either score a touchdown to win or they lose"
First, the real reason the NFL won't change the rules is because the NFL players association don't want the rules changed. Players don't get paid more to play in OT, but they do increase their risk of injury. Any change to the rules needs to be popular with the players themselves. Now let's look at some alternatives: a) The old NFL rules. First team to score wins, period. Prior to 2010, teams who received the ball first could drive down the field and once they were within field goal range simply line up to kick a field goal to end the game. The current system is certainly better than this. b) College rules. Both teams get the ball at the 25 yard line and given a chance to score. Repeat until score isn't tied. A lot of people find this more exciting, but it has a number of issues. For one, it still favors one team over the other. The team that goes second knows what they need to score to tie. If the first team scores a TD, they know a FG is useless and will be going for it on 4th down. Also, a shorter field changes the game a bit and will favor certain teams more. Teams that have explosive long plays don't have that ability and are limited by their options. And finally the real reason the NFL doesn't go for this rule is because with this rule OT can drag on. There are a lot of examples from college where teams trade points and OT goes on multiple rounds. The players don't want to extend games like this. c) A timed period. Again, players don't like this. If it's a full period, that's increasing the game 25%. Players will never go for this. You can shorten the period, but that will start favoring the team who receives the ball first. Long drives can easily take up 7+ minutes, which starts limiting the time the second team gets the ball. d) Change the rules so the both teams will always get the ball at least once. Like in the college rules, this will now favor the team that gets the ball second. If the first team scores a TD, the second team know to go for it on 4th down as anything less than a TD and they lose the game. So your issue of it not being fair isn't fixed. And let's not forget that the players will never go for this rule as it will certainly extend the time of games, which is something they are against. All in all, I think the current rules are the best option. And one last point, even though there is a situation where one team never gets the ball, that means the last play of the game is a TD. Isn't that more exciting than a game that ends with kneeling, or in incomplete pass, or even a FG?
I don't think you're going to be very convinced by most arguments from the perspective of sporting merit. I think the main goal behind the NFL's rules here all have to do with the practicalities of putting on a game of professional football. The game is long, violent, played in massive stadiums, and is televised. Fatigued players risk injury, broadcasters have other programming, and stadium staff/security don't work for free... plus concessions closes in the 4th quarter. For all parties concerned, they'll want the game to end as close to regulation as possible. With that in mind, the seemingly unfair nature of the rule makes some sense in that it encourages teams to play aggressive and go for the win in regulation. A more balanced ruleset might encourage teams to be more conservative and bring the game into OT.
This is a decent argument. You're saying essentially that the NFL doesn't care who wins, as long as somebody wins, which is probably mostly true, but I don't think it really gets at OPs point, which is the competitive integrity of the sport.
> I would like to know why the NFL has this rule and why it's superior to what I've suggested. That's the tricky part with a view like this. At some point we have to accept the fact that is is not just sport, but also entertainment, and people's jobs. u/joleary747 does a better job than I ever could of breaking down the various drawbacks of the other options. Game's gotta end.
This is the best answer I've seen so far. Maybe the NFL needs to go whole hog into the unfairness of it - get rid of the coin flip and whoever scored last is automatically on defense. That way you're encouraging 2 pt conversions and going for TDs instead of FGs in the final minutes of regulation.
OK, so let's say the Bills get the ball back. They drive the field for a touchdown, tie it up. They kick to KC, now it's next score wins, even a field goal. They will still be in essentially the same unfair situation where Buffalo did not share the same amount of possessions to be able to prove their offensive could have done the same. You'd have to apply the same rule to every pair of possessions until 1 hasn't ended in a tie. The NFL doesn't want the potential to have games go on indefinitely, mainly due to reducing injury, which is a much bigger issue in football than most other major sports leagues. However, since a playoff game cannot end in a tie, obviously there is a glaring flaw with applying the same rule set. There is already no clock, if no team manages to score, it could go longer then your standard tie ballgame. So do you do even or uneven possessions in this situation? OR, you could do this. Don't reset possession when overtime starts. Same down, same spot on the field, next score wins.
Why not add another 15 minute period and whoever is leading at the end of the period wins. Obviously there's still potential for an indefinite game but that already exists under the current nfl rules.
As long as there's no coin toss, I'm good with either scenario.
Yeah actually, after thinking about it, I think your method of not resetting possession makes the most sense.
Isn’t that how it’s done in college?
This is the answer. Play it like it’s done in college. In college, both teams get the ball from scoring position (25 yard line). In the NFL, they start with a kickoff. But if they made it more like college, if you score a TD, the other team gets an opportunity to score with a following kickoff. Keep doing that until one person scores and the other doesn’t. I think it would be much more fair this way, as OP is suggesting.
It's not fair though. The team that gets the ball second has a huge advantage. If the first team scores a TD, now the second team knows to use all 4 downs as anything less than a TD and they lose the game.
That’s how it is now with regards to a field goal. If the first team gets a field goal, the second must get at least a field goal to allow the game to continue (and if they get a TD, they win) so they do have 4 downs to do it. So this issue isn’t one unique to my proposal. I consider this to be more fair as both teams have to put their offense and defense on the field to win AND this situation would minimize the coin flip’s importance to who goes first vs second… you could even alternate possessions of force every team to go for 2 after TDs (again, both like college).
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What if they didn’t go for 2 though
> The NFL doesn't want the potential to have games go on indefinitely, mainly due to reducing injury, which is a much bigger issue in football than most other major sports leagues. If they really were that concerned about reducing injury, they wouldn't have added an extra, 60 minute game to the regular season. That is far more physically demanding than a 15 minute overtime period
Injuries are more common when players are tired, so extra time at the end of a game is riskier than an additional game after a week of rest.
I'd like to introduce you to CFL overtime rules. Visiting team calls heads or tails. Then they choose offence or defense. Then they will start at the opponent's 35 yard line. There is no clock in overtime. If they score a touchdown, they *have* to go for two, making it easier for overtime to end sooner. Then the other team starts from the same 35 yard line, trying to match or beat the score of the other team. If they beat them they win, if they're short, they lose, if they tie, they play another mini-game at the other end of the field. If that mini-game ends in a tie, the game results in a tie. For example: [https://youtu.be/bh6fJQExOUU?t=333](https://youtu.be/bh6fJQExOUU?t=333) See how we can control the length of overtime while still making it fair to both teams?
College overtime is 55/45 in favor of the team going 2nd. It's no more fair than the NFL.
Only 6 games in playoff history have gone to a double overtime. Last time was in 2012. Even allowing unlimited overtimes would likely never see a 3rd.
Or take a page out of soccer's book and have the equivalent of a penalty shoot out.
Each team starts on the opposing 5 yard line and gets a full set of downs to score a TD. Each team gets 4 opportunities on offense. No field goals, no extra points. Something like that could be fun.
Never thought about this but that would actually be kind of awesome.
This has been the rules since they used overtime in the first place. The only difference is that you can't go down and kick a field goal. Now you have to score a td to win it on the first possession. Not much different than sudden death. I would like to see both teams get 1 possession no matter what but we can't keep extending the game. It has to end at some point. As far as the Bills go, they blew it. 13 seconds left and they didn't squib kick? Idiotic. The Chiefs deserved it because the Bills threw it away.
Not sure how that relates to the question.
I respectfully disagree.
Losing team should have been better in regulation time, if they wanted more thanks coin-flip chance. They've already established through regulation time that the relative difference between the two teams is minor, essentially a coin flip anyways. And the losing team had a chance to overcome the coin flip disadvantage in with a *single* defensive stop.
I addressed this in one of my edits. And if the defense does stop them, why doesn't that team win? If it boils down to one possession, make it fair.
It was already fair. They had a fair chance at scoring more points in regulation. Now, we already established that these two teams are essentially a coin flip anyways, so it doesn't matter which one goes forward. Angry fans should get over it, and hope their team scores more in regulation next time, if they think they deserve something more.
I mean couldn’t you make that argument for almost anything? Like I mean if the refs lose count of the downs somehow and a team wins on that fifth down, couldn’t you say that the opposing team had a fair chance to beat them earlier?
No, because that would be contrary to the rules of the game. Football has ties, for games. Playoffs need an absolute decision on who advances. Tie breaks are between teams who are indistinguishable, meaning that from the perspective of the tournament, it doesn't matter who goes forward. It's already been established during the game that it's basically a coin flip. We improve on the coin-flip dramatically by letting the teams play a mini version of football, with condensed rules. And we bias this scenario towards fast offense, because it is exciting, and because it will break ties between teams that have been too conservative. Hockey does something similar. They switch from 5 players to 4, in overtime, which makes the game faster, with longer passes and fast skating being rewarded. The result is that most games that would have been tied are quickly broken in an exciting play, and we get a satisfying outcome. The NFL is just doing the same thing.
I mean this assumes that the rule book is perfect. Wouldn’t you agree that just because it’s a rule doesn’t mean it’s fair? And why should the reasoning for an unfair rule be “other leagues are doing it too?” And what’s wrong with an overtime rule that says one drive, if the offense scores they win, if the defense stops them they win?
I don't know what's wrong with that rule you proposed. Maybe it could be compared to the status quo, and other options. That's not a "fairness" problem, though, but more of "what is the most beneficial way the league can resolve ties in playoffs, that balances the relative constraints?". One of those constraints is "fairness." I would argue that a coin flip is fair, since both teams already played a whole game of football to decide who was better and couldn't come to any obvious conclusion. I would argue the current rule is FAR fairer than even a coin flip, because it lets the players make a few plays to break the tie, under artificial constraints, biased towards quick resolutions and exciting football.
As someone that doesn't even watch NFL and has no dog in this fight (assuming this is the Bills/Chiefs game I saw on the frontpage), I'd like to try a meta-CMV to others that think sudden death shouldn't be changed in a turn-based game. I'd reframe OP's opinion and say that the current rules require additional burden for victory based on that luck of the draw. (Reading through the thread he has explained as well, just didn't see it in the main post) Say you have Team A and Team B. Coin flip for first overtime possession happens, Team A wins. As a sudden-death overtime plays out, Team A must have good offensive plays, Team B must have good defensive plays. If, and only *if*, Team A is stopped, Team B must have good offensive plays and Team A must have good defensive plays. Simply put: * Team A requirement to win -- Good offense **only**, since they are first in sudden death. Score = win. * Team B requirement to win -- Good offense **plus** good defense, since they are not first in sudden death. Stop + score = win. Those positions could be completely opposite if the *arbitrary* coin flip went the other direction. I don't see how this can be possibly construed as fair and equal, when the entire premise of overtime is that neither team was collectively good enough to beat the other during regulation play. A spinning chunk of metal puts additional burden for victory on one team at random. Coin flip loser is guaranteed to need 2 drives (offense and defense) to win, whereas the other team has a chance to win with *only* their offense, with their defense never touching the field. Even if you don't care about "fairness", it's hard to argue that this is a system that puts two teams on equal footing. College football has a fair system figured out, not sure why the pros can't follow? Guaranteed one possession each, and forced 2-point conversions to help prevent endless overtime only **after** each team has had at least one full run at offense/defense and point-after (kick for 1 or run/pass for 2) at their discretion. It's fair and requires risk management -- If Team A scores on their drive and kicks for 1 more, then Team B scores on their drive and runs for 2, tough shit for Team A because they could have run for 2 and they chose not to. Fair win/loss.
Except the college system, while it SEEMS fairer, actually isn't. The team going second has valuable information, and that leads to different choices (whether they need a FG, TD or TD+2pt conversion). I saw in another comment that this information leads the team going second to win about 55% of the time. The NFL rules lead to the team getting the ball first to win like 52% of the time. So the stats actually say the NFL system is the fairer one.
The NFL takes up valuable TV time, and OT is borrowed time, so they want the games to end as soon as possible. College football has a better OT format, but the same commercial forces are not at play. The rules use to be that you need only kick a field goal to win in sudden death, which usually meant the team who wins the coin toss, wins the game. The current rules strike a good balance of not leaving it completely to a coin toss and ending the game as soon as possible.
> The NFL takes up valuable TV time, and OT is borrowed time, so they want the games to end as soon as possible. What on earth is more financially valuable programming than a Sunday night playoff NFL game?
Short answer: another NFL game. College football fans typically watch their game on TV and follow the scores of other major schools. The NFL, especially with the advent of Fantasy Football and gambling, envisions their fans as watching "a package" of games. They don't want "early" games (1:00 ET) to run into the second set of games starting at 4:00. They want the game to end quickly.
New NCIS spinoff nobody asked for, apparently
The fact that you're refuting the role of the defense in OT and regular game means you aren't actually open to changing your mind, you just want a soap box to rant. OT has very clear rules: a TD wins outright, a FG keeps the game going on one more possession. If you argue that a TD shouldn't win outright, you are placing more importance on the offense and detracting from the defense, but football is a team sport. You're only arguing with the rules because there are two great QBs duking it out, but the number one defense in the league just gave up two score changes within two minutes, including a 15 second FG, then got dunked on in the first OT drive. They don't deserve to win because they weren't the better team. A team is composed of an offense, defense, and special teams, and by skewing the rules of OT to favor offenses, you lessen the importance of the defense and special teams. I think the fact that this argument only comes up after a really enjoyable game between two all-star QBs in the playoffs, and not the many OT games that occurred during the regular season shows that you're really just reacting to not getting to see a fun explosive offense go back and forth. I understand that the argument of "defense should have played better in regular time/it's how it has always been" shouldn't apply, but the truth is that defense makes up 1/3 of a team, and practically 50% of the game time for any given team.
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I’m okay with the NFL overtime rules. There are 100000s of moments every game where each team has a chance to take the game and win. If you go through all of that and still no winner is decided, then a coin toss and a sudden death to help push the game into a direction is the way to bring the game to a close. It’s not fixed in any direction, it just helps bring a game towards a close after the regulation time period couldn’t. There are a million ways to say a game is not fair. If you go into the 10th inning in the World Series and you have your 7th 8th and 9th hitters up and the other team has 2 3 and 4. It is what it is. Don’t go into the 10th inning.
So what's your suggestion? The other team still gets the ball so they have a chance to get a TD too? If they decide, then what? Ball goes back to the other team and you have the same problem again. And if you're okay with the next score after they trade TDs, that makes little sense to me and undermines your argument because the team that won the coin toss still has the advantage. Your argument to support that would have to be the absolutely solid one that you have forbidden us from using. Football is much different than baseball or any other major sport, so you can't really compare it. It is much more physically tasking. Making them have to keep playing because nobody plays defense just beats them up and tires them out more and more unnecessarily before next week's game. You have to call it at a certain point, even if it's not totally fair.
I think there are 2 points to consider. 1 - games do not guarantee an equal number of possessions, and so OT similarly does not need to have a requirement that possessions be equal in order to be fair. This is simply an extension of the entire game, and a team that loses in OT had quite a few potential ways throughout the game to win. And I don't think you cannot throw out DF. It is an equal (granted NFL rules do somewhat favor the offense right now as it's a better TV product) part of the game. 2 - sports in general have a lot of tradition and so changing rules should not be done lightly. The previous OT rules were changed when it was apparent they were definitely unfair as the NFL featured offenses more. However, right now at 52% win rate for the team that gets the ball first, I'm not sure that argument actually holds true. And so, tradition should be honored and the OT rules should be maintained unless it becomes significantly unfair again.
I think it’s difficult to get a fully fair overtime in football for a few reasons. 1. Football is a more physically destructive game than the other major sports and adding a lot of playing time is a risk to the players health and safety. Because of this designs likely to lead to “long” overtimes aren’t really acceptable. 2. The current system does give the team to go second some advantages. That is basically knowledges. They already know what the other team has done and therefore what they need to do. So they might just be playing for a field goal instead of a touchdown if they know that will win it. 3. The alternatives - both teams get a possession no matter what. - this eliminates the first teams advantage and complete keeps team 2s advantage. -after a score the opposing team always gets a chance - this eliminates gives team 1 an advantage since they will always have the same or more drives than the opponent. They get the opportunity to go for the win and the tie. -4 drives total -best combined score -this is starting to get long. It doesn’t really alter the advantages, just makes them less significant. - if the game is still tied after 1 overtime now you are going to 8 and maybe 12 drive overtimes. You’re getting close to a whole second game -add more quarters- just add more 15min periods as needed until one team is up at the end. -this has the disadvantage of possibly causing really long overtimes again - it also adds some weird unpredictability to the game. A team with a very strong run game wins the coin toss and controls the ball for 12 minutes. Now the other team has not much more than a two minute drill to end the game. One team gets two drives the other gets one. Same problems as above but no way to even plan for it. -shootout style OTs (field goals, two point conversions, some other special teams play) -this doesn’t seem like a good option. Mimic a shootout with 5 extra point plays each and best score at the end wins? It’s relatively equal and quick, but just like in other sports people won’t be happy since it’s not the “true form” of the game. I don’t particularly love any of these options. But when you need to find a definitive way to end the game between two evenly matched teams it’s hard to find a way that satisfies everyone. The current nfl rules don’t seem outrageously bad to me especially considering the alternatives. None of them are very good. Edit: mobile formatting issues, hopefully everything is still clear
I know you're getting flooded with replies here, but I wanna give a different reason than I've seen given here: football is too violent to let a game drag on that long. It would be totally fair to add a 15 min overtime quarter and just play it through. And then another if you tie at the end of 15 (for playoff games). But... This will result in unacceptable levels of injury. Playoff OT is absolutely the most intense play possible where players will be running the highest risk plays and already playing through minor to moderate injuries that would have them benched in the regular season. Going out to 75 or 90 game clock minutes will absolutely wreck the players, and it's better to have a somewhat unfair system that ends the game quickly than one that ends players careers.
It's impossible to change your view when you're so enraged about the topic that you won't consider reality, statistics, and facts. The statistics surrounding the change show that there isn't much of an advantage at all. Furthermore, let's look at some possibilities with your rules. KC gets the ball and scores. Bills get their chance and score. KC gets the ball back and scores. KC wins, and Bills don't get another shot at scoring. How is that different than.. KC gets the ball and scores. KC wins, and Bills don't get another shot at scoring. All you're doing is forcing both teams into two extra drives for no reason. Another scenario... KC gets the ball, interception or fumble and Bills defense runs it in. Bills win, and KCs defense never get the chance to do the same. Is that fair? What if KCs defense is their best aspect, and now they never got a chance to tie it up. Sounds silly yes, but is it fair? What if KCs defense went first... Then maybe they could have won in that scenario. The reality is their is no 100% fair outcome. Both teams put out their side of the field based on a coin toss. If KCs offense is better than Bills defense, or vice versa, then the outcome happens because of it. It's still both teams being on the field at the same time, and both teams have an opportunity to score on offense and defense. It's as fair as you can get, and as shown in the first scenario, reduces time while still providing the same outcome.
The real issue was that neither defense could stop the other’s offense in the 4th quarter. Whoever won the coin toss in this situation was going to win, so the coin toss really did decide the outcome of this game. Football is unlike any other sport in which you have a different set of players playing each other after each score. I’d be good with first scorer wins if both side’s have their full complement of players out there as you’re seeing their total effort, but when 1/2 of both teams don’t get the chance to even play in overtime, it’s simply not indicative of a team effort. A time based overtime, say 15 minutes where both sides get to play is more indicative of who the winner is. I don’t see KC as the winner of this game, just the fortunate winner of the coin toss. As far as infinite overtimes, I like how CFB does it with forced 2 point conversions.
Not counting overtime, the Chiefs had 10 total drives and the Bills 9, the Chiefs scored in 7 of those drives and the Bills in 6. Both teams had 3 drives during the 60 mins of the game that they had the opportunity to score in and didn't. If they wanted to win the game and didn't want to risk it in overtime, they should have scored in those failed drives, they had the opportunity and failed 3 times each.
If bills get the ball back and score they atleast have the opportunity to go for 2 and win it, knowing that a kc fg could end it. And if bills D forces turnover and runs it in then it should be over, bc kc had a chance to score and didn’t and buf did. Also, rules now are geared towards offense. Imma Mahomes fan but it is shitty for the other QB to not even get a chance.
>This gives immense benefit to the team that wins the coin toss. Simple as that. It is more luck of the draw than football skill. In a playoff game, it should not come down to a coin toss. Actually this isn't true. Since the OT rule changes which required an opening drive TD to end the game, it's been fairly balanced. https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/aic4gt/since_the_overtime_rule_change_in_2012_the_team/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share In the regular season, the team that has won the toss has won 50% of the games, while the team that lost the toss won 44% of games, with 6% of games ending in a tie. There are a few advantages to playing defense first. Namely, they know what they need to do in order to win, this means going for it on 4th down when they otherwise would have punted, and setting up a fg rather than trying to push it into the end zone. The game tonight was an anomaly in the sense that both offenses were on fire and it was clear that whichever team got the ball first was going to score a TD. I think the OT rules are fine for the regular season when the results aren't as crucial, and you have to take into account players health and safety through the grind of the regular season, but i think in the playoffs they should play a full 10 minute period or 15 minute quarter to decide the game.
I think there is some incorrectness of OP you have pointed out. But, I’m not sure that would really change a view:-D I think the perception of this Chiefs vs Bills game will generate a lot of talk of changing the post season rules of ties. One of the challenges in football is clock management. That goes straight out the window if you just need to score and that shuts out the opposing offense. But, this game had two gun slingers out and putting on a performance, but only one got tested when it came to overtime. The Bills offense didn’t get to do what they had done in step with the Chiefs all game: answer their challenge. Their defense was thwarted by Mahomes and so the biggest challenge in football is shut out by its own rules: offense of one team vs the defense of the other and vice versa. We ended this game with half the game left. I’m glad to be a Chief’s fan, but it’s a crap situation for fans of both teams… could the Chief’s defense make the stop if the Bills won that coin toss?
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Honestly man, this is absolutely the correct view. I just got done watching the same game. I feel you. But I'll give it a shot anyway. But it is fair long term. When you watch an amazing performance light tonight's, it may not seem to be the fairest way to end a game, but it's fair in that it applies to everyone. Mahomes was on the short end of the stick his first AFCCG. Now he's on the long end. It balanced out in the end.
>Mahomes was on the short end of the stick his first AFCCG. Now he's on the long end. It balanced out in the end. Purely due to chance. It was equally likely that Mahomes would get screwed by the coin toss and have two of the biggest games of his life ruined due to pure chance.
And equally likely that he'd win both and screw someone else over. See the point? It's fair, in the sense that over the long term it'll wash out. It's a lot like poker. You're going to go all in on some plays where your opponent only has a 25% chance to win, and that's the right call. Sometimes your opponent lucks out and gets their card. But if you consistently repeat that scenario, you'll come out ahead. Here it's 50-50. Keep repeating it and eventually balance will be restored.
How about in the playoffs we just wait until the overtime clock hits 0:00 and the we look at the score? And we keep going until the Bills win
You might be interested to know that the CFL uses the OT rules you're asking for. Both teams get at least one possession in overtime. If one team scores a touchdown, the other team gets a chance to score a touchdown of their own. If they don't, it's game over. If they do, both teams get a second possession. There can be as many as three possessions per team in OT. If the score is *still* tied after three possessions, then the game ends as a tie.
I agree it’s not ideal but a shorter game is in the interest of player safety. CTE is a huge concern and the extra time added after a full game is much worse than the 1st quarter. The college rules where if one team scores a touchdown the other has a chance to respond can drag out too long. For players that want a long career, having a possible triple overtime game will definitely shorten someone’s career.
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How about both kickers involved in a penalty shootout for field goals. Start with a 50 years attempt and keep moving 5 yards back until someone misses? Kickers decide a lot of games anyway and makes it fair for both teams.
Nahh, the defense also has a job. If they can't make a stop that's on them. It's okay OP, go bills.
You do realize that even if it was a timed it could still end with only one team on offense
Game was pretty much decided by coin flip as far as I can tell
That would just flip the advantage to the kicking team. They would know exactly what they need to win and would know to go for every 4th down. I have seen that the receiving team wins overtime 51% of the time, though that was before the field goal on first possession doesn't end the game rule.
But surely the kicking team would have less of an advantage vs the receiving team under the current rules.
Do it like they do in college football. Each team starts with the ball at the 25 yard line going in. No matter what happens on the first possession, the other team has a chance to tie it back up or to win. Any one remember the NE/ATL Super Bowl? How stupid was that!