On Monday, an interesting rule change proposal for the NFL was reported by NFL Network’s Judy Battista. The league is potentially considering shortening the regular season overtime period from 15 minutes to 10 minutes.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a very good idea, considering the NFL’s relatively new (and complex) overtime rules in which both teams are guaranteed a possession unless the team receiving the opening kickoff of overtime scores a touchdown. In fact, this proposal is incredibly counter-productive to the NFL’s original overtime makeover by giving the team that has to kick off in overtime not enough time for a full possession if they limit the opposition to a field goal.

Imagine if a team has a seven- or eight-minute drive to open overtime that ends in a field goal. Then the opposing team basically only has two or three minutes to try to tie or score the winning touchdown. For example, in Week 17 last season, the Browns and Steelers went to overtime. Cleveland kicked a field goal on the first possession with 7:17 left in OT. At the 10-minute mark, Pittsburgh would have still been at the Cleveland 40-yard line on a drive when they would go on to score the winning touchdown.

Looking at the NFL’s overtime games from last season, the impact of a 10-minute overtime period would be fairly dramatic.

In the 2016 season, there were 13 overtime games, two of which ended in ties after the 15-minute period (Bengals-Redskins and Seahawks-Cardinals). In addition, four more games were decided in the last five minutes of the overtime period. If those four games would theoretically end in ties, then we’re looking at almost half of the overtime games in the NFL from last season being called ties. Over a longer run, the NFL has the number at 26.5 percent.

Beyond just the pure numbers and statistics, a 10-minute overtime would impact coaching and game strategy. The team receiving the opening kickoff could intentionally run a slow, methodical drive with the goal of going the length of the field to limit any potential time the other team may have in the event of a field goal.

Why is the NFL thinking of making this change? Of course, it’s the thorn in the side of most things NFL-related: Thursday Night Football. According to NFL.com, the league’s competition committee isn’t fond of teams perhaps playing an extra period and then having an extra-short turnaround.

That seems to be a pretty rare potential phenomenon, especially when we’re talking about a rule change that could have such a dramatic effect on wins and losses.

If the NFL is concerned about overtime taking too much time, now is the time to just bite the bullet and accept that the college overtime system is the way to go.

The college overtime system achieves everything the NFL wants to do but can’t quite figure out how to at the moment. (I know, it’s so unlike the NFL to over-complicate decisions that should be simple in a myriad of rule changes and regulations.)

The NFL clearly wants to give both teams a fair chance in overtime and not let the fate of a game be largely predicated on a coin toss after the end of regulation. College overtime does that by giving both teams possession at the 25-yard line and letting them have at it.

Now the NFL also wants to clearly limit the number of plays that players may have to go through in an extra overtime period. That’s understandable. The NFL season is a long enough grind as it is with wear and tear on players’ bodies, and reducing the exposure in overtime makes sense. The college overtime system could achieve that as well with a couple of minor tweaks.

In an ideal world, the NFL would want to reduce the chances of seeing a four- or five- (or more) overtime game that we see in college sometimes. The easiest way to do that would be to remove the ability to kick an extra point and make teams go for two beginning in the first overtime. While there would still be an outside chance of extended overtime play, with the two-point mandate it’d take a highly unusual set of circumstances to see overtime go on forever. And what’s more, NFL defenses are much better than their college compatriots so we likely wouldn’t see an endless parade of touchdowns either.

Another option would be to move the ball back to the 40-yard line or midfield as the starting point for possession. Give the defense a way (besides a turnover) to hold the offense without scoring and create another drive result instead of an automatic score through a touchdown or a field goal.

Not only would adopting a college-style overtime create more drama and strategy, but with a couple of simple tweaks it could present everyone involved with a satisfying conclusion to the game. Ties would be ancient history and any kind of built-in coin toss advantage would be gone.

With these factors in mind, as much as you want to debate its merits, the college overtime system works. At the very least, it works a lot better than a 10-minute overtime period would.

1 thought on “The NFL should just go ahead and adopt college-style overtime

  1. “the NFL’s relatively new (and complex) overtime rules”
    Really? Are you a soccer fan?
    NFL OT rules are exactly right as they are now. The solution to the TNF dilemma is crystal clear too, but we all know Goodell is too dumb to realize.

Comments are closed.