“NFL-vs-Overtime”

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The NFL, coming off an electric season, with spectacular playoff games, has its owners meetings in West Palm Beach.

The Competition Committee will give ownership a 120-page evaluation of rules and recommendations on what changes need to be made.

The biggest question as the breakfast meeting, instant replay, how to fix it, adjust it, make it better, make it fairer.

The game is so fast, so athletic, so hard to officiate, the NFL is constantly looking to make the game better, help the officials, and get the calls correct.

Instant replay was a start.  Expanding it has made the game better.  Giving coaches challenges has helped clear up mistakes.

And there is more to be done.

The push for the addition of an 8th official, a ‘Sky Judge’  remains a talking point.

But in all the uproar over instant replay, little has been solved about the inequity in the game, the NFL’s overtime rule.

Arguments everywhere about the fairness-unfairness of the rule in overtime, and now it has spilled over to the most important time of the year, NFL playoff games.

The debate will rage the next 24-hours.  Should each team be guaranteed 1-full possesion in overtime, rather than the current rule, tha tif the team that gets the kickoff in overtime, wins if it scores a TD.  Should that be changed?

Should each team get a chance to score a TD and then let the game go to sudden death overtime to fill out the final 10-minutes?

The coin toss has now become an integral conversation point about overtime too.  The team that wins the coin toss, gets the ball and the chance to win the playoff game in OT with a TD, never allowing the other team the chance to tie.

It takes 24-yes votes to pass a rule change on overtime.

The NFL has always been about fairness, equal play, so why not this rule update.

In the NFL, the team that won the overtime coin toss in regulatr season, won the game with the first possession 54% of the time.

In the playoffs, in overtime, 12-games have been decided.  The coin toss winner is (10-1) in those postseason playoff games.  And the team that won the coin toss, won the game 7X with the initial possession.

The epic playoff classic-Bills-Chiefs, that January shootout of last year, seemed to end so unfairly, the Chiefs won the toss, went and scored a TD, and Josh Allen and the Bills never got a chance to match what KC did.

This discussion will be fun to observe.  It’s still a 10-minute overtime, but both teams have a chance to score, to tie, or win, or go for a 2-point conversion that changes all the dynamics.

Can you imagine how electric postseason might be if the Bills had that chance to match what the Chiefs did.

There will be discussion too about whether to implement the ‘Equal Possession Rule’ for both regular season and the playoffs, or just the post season games.

The NFL has made so many upgrades in the rules, making the game better, safter, and now they have a chance to make all the calls correct with a new overtime rule.

Go for it.  We see where this takes us this week.

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