The NFL owners got together recently and the topic of overtime came up once again. Unfortunately, the owners only made a minor tweak to overtime. They moved back the kickoff 5 yards. (Yawn)
This will not do, as overtime is so anti-climactic is needs some changes. On this topic, NASCAR is head and shoulders above the other major sports. Whenever an issue arises in NASCAR, they fix it IMMEDIATELY. There is no "wait and see what happens next year" approach.
The NFL overtime needs an overhaul, most fans will tell you that. Now, how exactly to change it, that is the $1,000,000 question. There have been several options discussed, and I would like to address some of them here.
First up is the NCAA formula. This system gives each team at least one possession inside the opponents territory and the teams drive to score a TD or FG, and then the other team matches or tops the score. On the third possession, a two point conversion is mandatory. That works fine for college, but many NFL people are against it, I can give or take it myself.
Another idea that I have heard mentioned is the "5th quarter" rule. In this scenario, you would play overtime period of shortened length (5 min, 10 min) and would play it just like any other quarter of the game, it would not be sudden death. This is an interesting idea, my take would be, why not just make it a full 15 minute quarter then?
Now, I have an off-the-wall type of idea. It is simple, unique and interesting (and also very unlikely to ever be used). My scenario is this: keep it a sudden death period, BUT...allow NO FIELD GOALS in overtime. In other words, you can only win by a touchdown (or a safety). This eliminates the "one play drives" that occur too often and are followed by a long FG. In my scenario, the coin toss would be less crucial, as the teams would need to march all the way down the field to score and win.
I will defer to the great Bob Costas for the last overtime idea. He spoke of this during last season on NBC. He says that all rules should stay the same, EXCEPT THAT...each team gets one offensive possession. Not like college, not from close in, just from a punt or kickoff like normal. Once again, Mr. Costas' brilliance is too much for me, and for those who run the NFL. This simple, yet superb change would only improve an already wonderful sport.
Alas, much like Bob Costas' ideas for baseball that he outlined in his terrific book "Play Ball", the overtime idea is unlikely to ever be implemented. We can dream though, we can dream.
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I think the problem with NFL current overtime rules is really a 2 part issue. The first being, the game opening coin flip doesn't really give one team or the other an advantage...both teams play on both sides, both receive the ball at the beggining of a half. The OT flip allows 1 team to receive 1 more non-score induced kickoff...that team typically goes on to have an approximately 40-50 yard field(assuming they end up on the 20 yard line after the kick off) to kick the FG and win the game. To aid in both of these problems, 1)eliminate the 50/50 nature of who initially gets the ball....make it skill related. each team takes 50 yard field goal attempts until 1 team has more (in the same number of tries). This team gets the ball. To end the game(sudden death style) in the 5th period, a team must be up 4 points, thus eliminate the short field field goal problem...if no team gains an 4 point advantage in the 5th period then the team with more at the end of clock wins...if it's still tied, then the game is tied. This way no team can complain that it wasn't fair...it was left to chance...teams always try to sign good kickers, this would help in initially receiving the ball...their is incentive to go for the TD and end the game....
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