NFL Owners Vote for New Overtime Rules
by Badger of Predictem.com
On Tuesday, the competition committee of the National Football League voted to change the rules of overtime next year starting in the playoffs by a whooping 28-4 vote. But only 24 hours later on Wednesday, as the NFL owner’s meetings in Orlando, Fla., were wrapping up, several owners were already calling for the new rules to be included for next year’s regular season.
So don’t be surprised if the new OT rule becomes the law when the NFL owners reconvene in May, especially since Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffery Lurie and New York Giants owner John Mara have already publicly stated that they want the rule in place for the regular season.
The new overtime rule is simple: if the team that wins the coin flip decides to play it safe and kick a field goal on the opening possession of OT, the other team will get the ball back to try and match the field goal or score a touchdown to win it. If the coin-flip winning team scores via touchdown, the game ends in sudden death fashion just like before.
This is not a one-year experiment either, as the vote was for the permanent change to the old OT rule.
The old overtime rule hasn’t been altered or changed in 36 years, starting in 1974 when the NFL was looking for a way to eliminate all of the games that were ending in ties. From 1974 to 1994 the team that won the coin flip in OT also won the game, but only at a 46.8 percent rate. In 1994 the NFL changed the kickoff from the 35-yard line back to the 30-yard line, and that tipped the balance in favor of the coin-flip winning team. Since 1994 the team that won the coin flip has enjoyed a 59.8 percent of winning the game (34.4 percent on the 1st possession).
Now whether or not the rule NEEDED to be changed is debatable, but I think you’d have a hard time finding anyone that thinks the old rules are better than the newly proposed solution. But with kickers becoming more accurate, many of the NFL suits decided something needed to be done to make overtime fair for both teams involved.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has stated that the league wants to meet with the players union and the television networks that broadcast NFL games to discuss the ramifications before expanding the new OT rule into the regular season, but I highly doubt that either of those parties will be opposed to the new scenario.
Personally, I think the new OT rule is a step in the right direction. By changing the rule the owners basically admitted the old rule was junk.
By the way, the four teams that voted against the new rule were the Buffalo Bills, Minnesota Vikings, Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens. The most curious team voting against the rule is the Vikings, who lost this year’s NFC Championship game to the New Orleans Saints when the Saints won the coin toss and kicked a game winning field goal on the opening possession.
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