the nfl overtime rule

There are about a thousand different ways to deal with a tied football game. You can leave it tied, as was the rule in college for many years. You can let the teams alternate possessions starting at the 25 or the 10, as is the case now in college and high school. Neither of these solutions is ideal. The current college and high school system eliminates the importance of field position, punting, and the vertical passing game, while placing a heavy premium on turnovers, field goal kicking, and two point conversions. And obviously, ties must be avoided in the NFL playoffs. But either of those proposals is a huge improvement over the NFL’s joke of a playoff system. In fact, just about any system would be an improvement. It is far too easy for the team that wins the coin toss to march down the field, kick a field goal, and win the game without a single possession for the other team. Of six NFL overtime games this year, three have been decided by a field goal on the opening possession.

Admittedly, that’s a small sample size, but a great many games have been decided in this way. It’s more of a problem now than when the NFL adopted the rule in 1974, because the percentage of made field goals has gone from 60.6% in 1974 to 84.5% in 2008. In every year from 2004 on kickers have made more than 80% of their field goal attempts. NFL kickers are all but automatic inside 40 yards, meaning a team only has to get to the 22- or 23-yard line to clinch a win. When kickers weren’t as good, the NFL’s overtime rule made much more sense.

It’s hard to think of a worse system. I’d love to see a 15-minute overtime played straight through with normal rules, but the players’ union would have justifiable reason to be upset at the extra wear and tear on their bodies. TMQ had a column this February about a number of proposed reforms, including one from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell himself. Goodell suggested not allowing the team that gets the ball first to win the game with a field goal. That’s not a bad idea. A lot of the arguments in favor of the current rule or of that proposal suggest that if you can’t play enough defense to get a stop, you don’t deserve to win. That’s all well and good in may situations, especially if a touchdown is required, but when two high-powered offenses meet even a touchdown can be too easy to come by. Easterbrook (a vocal proponent of going for it on 4th down) suggests playing a full fifteen minutes but without punts, field goals, or PAT kicks. Again, I think the players’ union would take issue with this, and I don’t like unnecessarily taking the punters and kickers out of the game—why should they be benched for the whole overtime when they’re a vital part of the first 60 minutes of the game? Two of his readers suggest requiring that a team take a four- or six-point lead, and Easterbrook ultimately sides with simply getting rid of overtime field goals, but again, I think this is unfair when two very good offenses meet. But I think it’s safe to say that all of these proposals are a good deal better than the current rule.

Some of the more interesting suggestions turn the overtime coin toss into some sort of auction. Either one team chooses where the ball will be placed and the other side chooses offense or defense; each team makes a sealed bid with where they are willing to start with the ball and the team that has a bid farther away from the opponent’s end zone wins; or the referee conducts a live auction with the teams bidding for where they’ll start. But I can’t see the NFL choosing any of these—a little too theoretical.

My proposal is simple, and has been used by the Arena League and the new UFL. If a team scores on the first possession, the other team gets a chance to match it (or better it). If both teams score touchdowns on the first possession and the team that scored first scores again on its next possession, the second team gets another chance to match it (and so on as long as TDs keep happening). Otherwise, it’s sudden death. Again, it’s not a perfect system—the team that scores first still has an advantage—but if the teams trade field goals on the first possession and the first team kicks a field goal to win on its second possession, at least the second team’s offense had a chance to score a TD.