Five suggested tweaks for NFL overtime rule that were made following Chiefs’ loss

[T-post Tom]

The possession breakdown In the overtime period of Sunday’s AFC Championship Game looked like this:

Patriots: 4 minutes, 52 seconds.

Chiefs: zero seconds.

New England beat the Chiefs 37-31 in overtime at Arrowhead Stadium, and Kansas City’s offense never took the field. That’s how sudden-death overtime works, of course. If a team wins the coin flip and scores a touchdown, the game ends. Kick a field goal and the other team gets the ball with a chance to tie or win.

But the Patriots got the touchdown and ended the Chiefs’ season.

For a number of neutral observers, that was an unsatisfactory end because quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs never got the ball.

Here are five suggested tweaks for the NFL’s playoff overtime format from people who cover the game:

1. Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News wrote: “The NFL’s overtime rule calls for a sudden-death victory if the team that possesses the ball first scores a touchdown on that drive. It’s preposterous. In fact, because the Chiefs were the home team — a designation earned by achieving the best regular-season record of any team in the conference — they didn’t even get to call the coin toss. The visiting squad gets that honor, just because.”

DeCourcy proposed a fix.

“The solution at this stage of the season has got to be to put 15 minutes on the clock and see which team has more points when that period is done,” he wrote. “And if it’s still tied, to do it again. Maybe another 15 minutes, maybe just 10; that could be discussed. But there’s no defense for keeping an offense like the one the 2018 Chiefs deployed from having a say in the team’s destiny.”

2. Jacob Feldman of Sports Illustrated came up with a made-for-TV suggestion for who should get the ball first in overtime:

Since I know we're going to be doing this all off-season, my overtime suggestion:

Each team secretly says what yard line they'd be willing to start with the ball on. Whoever suggests a worse starting position gets the ball there.

— ✏️Jacob Feldman (@JacobFeldman4) January 21, 2019

3. Michael David Smith, the managing editor of Pro Football Talk, also proposed a change to the coin flip:

If we're going to keep the current overtime format of sudden death for a TD but not for a field goal on the first possession, the change I'd make is to get rid of the coin flip and determine who receives the kickoff based on something that happened in the game, like total yards.

— Michael David Smith (@MichaelDavSmith) January 21, 2019

4. USA Today’s Nate Scott wrote: “We didn’t get to see Patrick Mahomes. That alone should tell the NFL that its overtime rules are fundamentally flawed.”

Scott thinks the NFL should go back to school. College that is.

“(W)at’s especially infuriating is the solution is right there,” Scott wrote. “College football has the greatest overtime in sports. Their solution with the overtime conundrum was to turn the game into a game of backyard football, and it’s fantastic. Let the teams take turns scoring on each other until we pass out. That’s excellent!”

5. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com also liked the college overtime rule, but with one twist:

How about the NFL adopts the college football overtime system but with touchdowns only? https://t.co/27FpQsiBsq pic.twitter.com/nGEAsJK4Ce

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 21, 2019

https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/for-petes-sake/article224860635.html