I was reading ESPN The Magazine today, and in their New Year, New Rules issue, Peter Keating suggests a few ways to improve the NFL’s rules for overtime.
I thought I’d pull in our NFL guru, Anthony Stalter, and kick a few of these around. I have a personal favorite that wasn’t on Keating’s list that we’ll discuss at the end.
John Paulsen: All right, Anthony. Keating writes that there are three rules to overtime: 1) it “should preserve the essential character of a sport while moving games toward conclusive results,” 2) it should be fair, and 3) it should be fun. The current overtime system in the NFL isn’t fair, and I’d argue that it isn’t fun either. Although my beloved Packers lost in OT after winning the coin flip, 72% of teams that won the flip last season went on to win the game. That’s not fair. And if it’s not fair, then it’s not fun, either. Keating’s first suggestion is the divide-and-choose method. The winner of the coin toss picks the yard line at which the ball would be placed (say, the 25-yard line) and the other would decide who gets the ball. The first team to score wins the game. What do you think?
Anthony Stalter: I fail to see how this is a major improvement over the system that is currently in place. It still puts too much emphasis on a coin flip and besides, I think we’d see the ball being placed on the 20-yard line more times than not. A team wouldn’t want to start backed up to its own goal line and wouldn’t want another team to start close to midfield. So the ball would likely be placed at the 20 and thus, all you’re really doing is eliminating the kickoff. And if we were just eliminating the kickoff, teams would still want the ball first and therefore, hate winning the coin toss.
