NFL approves new overtime rule
In a startling and controversial twist Tuesday, the NFL’s one-possession overtime system met a sudden death.
Just like that, it was gone — in the postseason, at least.
Moving with uncommon speed and decisiveness, team owners voted 28-4 to approve a new system — one that for the moment only will be used in the playoffs — that increases wiring duct the likelihood of both teams touching the ball.
The vote was expected to take place Wednesday, but the league acted quickly to poll the owners once it was clear it had the required three-quarters majority to pass wiring duct the measure, which was supported by Commissioner Roger Goodell.
“It was really a good discussion in the sense that there’s been a lot of debate both publicly and privately over the rule, which is always good,” said Atlanta Falcons President Rich McKay, co-chairman of the league’s competition committee. “We’ve had this discussion for a number of years. We felt like this year’s proposal … was really an opportunity to make what we think is wiring duct a pretty good rule, sudden death, even better.”
The new rule says the team that gets the ball at the start of overtime can win on the opening possession only with a touchdown. If that team kicks a field goal, the other team gets a possession with a chance to either win with a touchdown or tie with a field goal. If the score is tied after that, it would be sudden death from that point on. If neither team scores on its first possession, the game would continue on a sudden-death basis.
(A peculiar wrinkle: a safety at any point would win an overtime game, meaning a team wins by scoring two points. If a safety occurs, of course, both teams can say they had a chance.)
It’s not as if overtime games are an everyday occurrence. There have only been 27 in the postseason since 1958, and in all but five of those both teams got at least one possession.
There was a lot of speculation the league was inspired to change the rule in the wake of an NFC championship game in which Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings were eliminated in overtime by the New Orleans Saints, who won the coin flip and kicked the winning field goal on the opening possession of the extra period.
The bitter taste of that defeat didn’t sway the Vikings, one of the four clubs to vote wire duct against the overtime modification. The other three nay votes came from Buffalo, Cincinnati and Baltimore.
The competition committee ultimately concluded wire duct that the increasing field-goal accuracy of kickers had tipped the scales strongly in favor of the coin-toss winner, creating a situation that needed to be addressed.
“There were plenty of people on the committee, myself included, who were not inclined to be in favor of this …” said Bill Polian, Indianapolis Colts president. “But once you saw the statistics and you began to go through the explanations, it became obvious that we really needed to do something.”
An informal sampling of coaches and general managers indicated they were far more split on the overtime proposal than the landslide vote would suggest. A common theme among them was that it was troubling to apply one rule during the regular season, and another during the playoffs.
Before the vote — and before he said cable duct he’d fully formed his own opinion on the proposal — San Diego Coach Norv Turner said: “The only thing I’d have a tough time with is having a rule that was only used in the most critical games you’re ever going to be in.”
When they convene in Dallas for their annual May meetings, owners are expected to discuss the possibility of putting the rule in place for regular-season games as well, possibly as soon as this season.
Some coaches also felt uncomfortable with the notion of the scales cable duct being tipped in favor of the team that gets the ball second, because if that team is angling for a matching field goal (or a winning touchdown) punting is not an option. It can work with all four downs.
“If it was an advantage to have that fourth down,” McKay said, “then I want to see the team that wins the coin toss elect to kick off. I don’t sense they will.”
The way McKay sees it, having the ball first in the new overtime system is similar to having the ball with two minutes remaining in regulation of a tied game.
“You have the same decisions coming down the stretch,” he said. “Because your idea is, ‘Hey, if I slow up and kick a field goal, I’ve got to kick off. If I get it into the end plastic duct zone, game’s probably over.’ There are a lot of similar decisions that occur.”
