It seems that no matter what happens, the NFL cannot come up with an overtime format that works. What started as a 15 minute sudden death period eventually became 10 minutes and if the first team doesn’t score a touchdown on the opening drive, the other team has a chance to match the score or win.
After a playoff game where the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills by scoring a touchdown on the opening OT drive, one team is proposing tinkering with the process once again.
According to Washington Post NFL reporter Mark Maske, the Indianapolis Colts have submitted a proposal to the NFL’s competition committee that guarantees each team gets at least one possession in overtime. While previous reports suggested that it could be proposed for just the postseason, the Colts want this to be a thing during the regular season and the playoffs.
NFL competition committee is meeting today in Indy. There is at least some sentiment within the committee for modifying OT for the postseason to ensure that each team gets one possession. But such a measure still would need to get 24 votes among the 32 teams to be enacted.
— MarkMaske (@MarkMaske) February 27, 2022
The Colts submitted a proposal to guarantee each team of at least one possession in overtime, both in regular season and postseason games, source says. But, again, it will need 24 votes to pass and that's a significant task.
— MarkMaske (@MarkMaske) February 28, 2022
One possible reason that the Colts are spearheading this move is that they lost a Week 5 game to the Baltimore Ravens when the Ravens scored a touchdown on the opening overtime drive. That loss wound up costing the Colts as they missed the playoffs by half a game.
Who knows if this proposal actually goes through but chances are it still won’t be perfect. Because once a team gets screwed over, fans will complain and they’ll want a different format. Honestly, my idea would be a penalty kick style shootout where both teams alternate on offense and defense and try to score a two-point conversion. Best of three and if it’s tied after three rounds, it becomes sudden death. The winner of the shootout gets one point. It’s a radical idea but it would guarantee that we wouldn’t have ties anymore.