NFL OT: Addition By Subtraction Benefits All

By Iain Bartholomew

The overtime debate is probably as old as the concept of overtime itself. The NFL, keen to continue maintaining the league’s position at the head of the American sports table, is discussing proposed changes to the current system in an effort to best implement the value of fairness and promote a positive conclusion to tight matchups.

Opinions vary all over the media. For example, Peter King of Sports Illustrated, an often-heard and largely respected commentator, is pro-reform whilst ESPN’s Mike Sando prefers to retain the current system but suggests possible tweaks to determine starting possession.

The Internet holds an infinite number of suggestions for how to improve overtime so that it is both fair and representative of the game in its format and determination. The one possibility that has received the least, if any, consideration is perhaps the simplest and at the same time most radical – do away with overtime in the regular season altogether.

The initial response to that proposal is easy to anticipate – ties are bad, why would we want to implement a system that promotes them? It takes a longer, more rational consideration to realize that this is not the outcome which would result from the removal of overtime. Teams would not simply play the game to its conclusion as at present and accept tied games as a natural consequence of the absence of a convoluted determination of success.

Coaches will need to take decisions, considered or otherwise, at the end of games. They'll have to ask themselves is a tie good enough? What do we need to do to win this game in regulation? A team trailing by three points with 30 seconds left on the clock and needing a win to make the playoffs cannot kick a field goal and take the game to overtime, they need to find a way to win now. The head coach who sees his team pull to within a point with a last-second touchdown must decide to kick for a tie or try to win the game with a 2-point conversion. The team that leads by three points and cannot afford to lose is no longer in a position to play prevent, concede the field goal and take their chances in overtime.

The result will be positive and decisive football played in the fourth quarter of games. The result will lead to more criticism of plays in regulation, more heart-stopping moments and more entertainment. Teams will need to adapt their thinking to the legitimate possibility of ties – how do these factor in to the standings? When is it safe or sensible to play for a tie? Can we afford to risk defeat to take the victory in our hands? Can we afford not to? All of those playoff permutations you ignored because they required certain teams to tie will become live possibilities and, most importantly of all, nothing will be determined by the toss of a coin. Just 11 guys against 11, on the football field for 60 minutes.

In any given NFL season it is a surprise to see more than one game tied, but don’t mistake this proposal as a step towards soccer-style standings where lesser teams play for a tie because they have no realistic prospect of victory. Football is not played in the same way. In the NFL teams have the ball in their hands with an opportunity to make something happen right up until the clock ticks to zero. There is no equivalent to the soccer team that packs its defense and makes itself tough to beat. There is no way to close up shop and turn away everything that comes at you; else the two-minute offense would be meaningless. There is no way to play to tie an NFL game from the outset.

Instead of spending time on the impossible task of contriving a system that will please everyone, which will never happen, the simple choice is to simply extract the problem. If the goal is to produce exciting finishes, dramatic moments and decisive plays then it is the removal, not the modification, of overtime that will accomplish the task.

Iain Bartholomew is a guy with really big brain who takes the time to look at things in detail. He's a very interesting voice on Twitter and should be followed with regularity at @iainbartholomew.