NFL overtime change will be for the better - Gonzales, LA - Gonzales Weekly Citizen In the last NFC Championship Game, the New Orleans Saints won the overtime coin toss, cobbled together a modest drive and kicker Garrett Hartley split the goal posts to lift his team to victory over the Minnesota Vikings. The Saints went on to their first Super Bowl in franchise history, a game they won over the heavily-favored Indianapolis Colts. Due to a new NFL rule announced this week, the kind of sudden death witnessed in the NFC title game will be a thing of the past in high-stakes postseason games. Beginning next season, if a team wins the coin toss and then kicks a field goal, the other team gets the ball. If their next series ends with another field goal, play continues under the current sudden-death rules. If the team that wins the coin toss scores a touchdown on their first drive, the game ends. Team owners voted 28-4 in favor of the rule change. Not everyone is happy with the change. Some have expressed their desire to stick with the traditional method of deciding a winner when a game goes into overtime. But in the modern era of professional football, the old way put too much emphasis on the sheer luck of the coin toss. If a team wins the flip, they have a better shot of winning because most kickers are highly accurate these days. Largely-untested Hartley was able to step into the pressure-packed situation and make it look easy – his kick sailed perfectly through the Louisiana Superdome up-rights. Take practically any NFL kicker and put him in the same situation, and more often than not, the same result would occur. Kicking field goals in the NFL is not nearly the adventure it was decades ago. Many were against the overtime changes in college football a few years back. While it may not be a perfect system for determining a winner, it’s certainly better than deciding a game essentially by a coin toss. The college system lets players breathe a little. It’s OK to give up a field goal or a touchdown, as long as it’s matched. This creates an exciting environment. It encourages a shoot-out. It couldn’t hurt for the NFL to experiment with some overtime rule changes. If the new rules go well this year, perhaps it’s worth looking into applying the same rules to regular season games. It may be tough for Saints fans to fathom, but imagine if the Vikings won the coin toss and hit a game-winning field goal without the Saints' high-powered offense ever stepping onto the field of play in overtime. Especially with a comeback specialist like Brett Favre, surely lots of Vikings fans have wondered “what if.”
BS way of doing it. The right way can be clarified with one sentence: Each team is entitled to at least one possession of the ball. If the receiving team kicks a field goal or scores a touchdown, they kick off. The moment the ball is put into play, either by a return man or by the offense after a touchback, the game is sudden death. If they fail to score, the first team wins. If they kick a FG to tie the score again, continue play under the current rules. If they fumble on the kick, game over. If the team that wins the toss gets caught for a safety on their first possession, they lose.
:lol::lol::lol: Here is the one sentence to which I was referring: The rest was embellishment. I do that. A lot. Too much, maybe. I'm doing it again, aren't I?
Goodell's plan (and yours) gives a big f.u. to kickers: "when it comes to winning games, you don't really count." Or as Coach Payton put it...before, the big climactic moment came when the kicker hit the FG. Now its going to be when the other team throws an incompletion on fourth down. Not a very exciting way to end a big game.
I don't like the new rule. College football has many things wrong but the one thing they do have right is the overtime rules.
It (the old rule) gives the edge to the coin toss winner because the offense only has to go to the 30-35 to win the game.
Right, and I never liked the fact that it was possible for one team to win without ever seeing the ball, even if it did benefit us in the NFCCG. That's why I think the "one touch for each team" rule works. Under that rule in the Championship game, Hartley kicks the FG, then Peterson fumbles again, and its over. Anti-climactic, as CSP said, but the ViQueens at least got their fair chance to tie or win it. Goodell's rule says its not just who scores first, its how you score that matters? Ridiculous.
This is a joke. The old rule still is good for the regular season but it is not good enough for post season. Agree mctiger, both teams need to see the ball, regular and post season or just leave it like it was. They have just made it worse.
