nfl overtime rule change

Or leave it the fuck alone. Sudden death...there's a reason it's called that

 

I don't like sudden death in football unless both teams have one possession or you at least make the first team to touch the ball to score a touchdown.

Kickers are too good these days (well, last year's playoffs aside) that a 55-yarder is not out of the question for most teams, which means a team only has to get to the 38 to score and win the game.

That just doesn't sit right with me.

 

I like that idea. And I like this proposal. I wouldn't have a problem if one team didn't get the ball IF they gave up a TD on the opening drive. A TD earns the win.

But I hate these OTs where one team wins a coin flip, only gets a first down or two, but gets a penalty that gets them near the 35, they kick a long field goal, game over before the other guy's had a chance. I've seen WAY too many NFL games end that way and it always leaves a bad taste.

 

30% of all OT games end on the first possession..not all of them by field goal. Can't find a number on FG on first possession but I'm betting it's about 20%.


It's ain't broke. Does not need fixing.

 

Assuming those number correct, I would suggest that means it IS broke in 20% of the cases, and they just need to amend the rules to remedy that 20% problem. Looks to me like that's all they're trying to do here. The OTs will play out the same way they already do in the other 80% of OT games. I see no problem with this proposal.

 

But what's to say your defense can't get a three-and-out? Or that your special teams can cover the kickoff?

You don't want the game to come down to a crapshoot? Be aggresive and poised and win the damn game in regulation. Don't play for 50+-yard field goals on the road in the NFC Championship Game (Brad Childress) or 45+-yard field goals outdoors in Pittsburgh in January (Herm Edwards) just so you can ensure the clock runs out.

 

I'm all for the new change, since I think the team that loses the coin toss is at a huge disadvantage.
Give each team at least one possession, then it's sudden death if/after they both score.

 

If there's a field goal at the end of regulation, that's OK, but in overtime it's a farce?

This 6-point stuff, that's a farce.

You can't treat overtime like a brand new game. It's an extension of the first four quarters, in which both teams will have had at least 8 or 10 possessions.

20 percent of OT games end with a first-possession FG and that's evidence a system is broken? How many playoff overtime games have there ever even been? A dozen? 15? Guarantee if they change the rule, there won't be a playoff OT game for four years.

 

Fuck it. The first team to take a lead of more than Seventeen (17) points, to ensure nobody wins on a fluke TD and then an aberrational turnover. You beat a team by 18 points, you pretty much prove you are the SUPERIOR TEAM.

 

what is so wrong with a 10 minute period? Just play the damn thing out.

 

More to the point, at all levels of football, some rules have to be changed to reduce the efficiency of field-goal kickers (in the NFL, it's now in the mid-80 percentile, in college the mid-70s), which makes field goals too attractive in almost all strategic situations.

1. Narrow the goal posts to 15 feet (from the current 18-6), which would knock down percentages

2. Require the holder for place kicks to spot the ball at least 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage (vs. the current customary 7 yards), which would make FG attempts longer, make bad snaps slightly more common , and probably enable defensive teams to block more attempts by rushing around the ends.

My bet is these two changes would drop FG efficiency about 20 percent, and probably reduce extra points to about 95% (from the current 99+), both of which would reduce the frequency of overtime games.

 

I don't like the proposal, either, but this is a terrible argument. Amazingly enough, the NFL might just find time to deal with more than one issue at a time. Tweaking overtime has absolutely nothing to do with the other two issues you bring up.

The NFL has done a bad job of dealing with steroids and concussions because the powers that be haven't wanted to deal with those issues properly, not because they were busy with other things. They dealt with the steroid issue before your beloved baseball did. Not well, but they didn't ignore it nearly as long. And they have been dealing with the concussion issue quite a bit in the past year. Have they done enough? Absolutely not, and they should have done more a long time ago. But none of that means they can't deal with the overtime rules at the same time.

That said, I don't like the part about allowing it to be over if one team scores a touchdown, either. Make sure both teams get a possession regardless of how one team scores.