OT: NFL Ties

[jmt57]

The change from sudden death to each team having a posession was in order to make it fair.

But including a ten-minute time limit contradicts the fairness theory. Team A takes possession and can go on a drive for more than five minutes. That means Team B gets less time, sometimes substantially less.

Eliminate the clock for the first two possessions (or for the entire OT).


Another possibility: start out at the 50-yard line.
Each team gets one down, then alternate, switching the two teams from offense to defense.
No punting allowed.
First team to score wins.

 

[NFL Mystique]

First team to get a TD wins. That seemed very fair. At least for the postseason. If defenses can't stop a TD on the opening drive, too bad.

For the regular season, go back to the old days. First team to score (fg, safety etc) wins. I bet that will make teams be more eager to go for the win instead of a tie at the end of regulation.

 

[NFL Mystique]

If the current postseason rules were in place in 2016, Atlanta would have gotten a chance at tying/going for two to win.

 

[Family]

All you have is that a 10-6-1 team trumps a 10-7 team for the playoffs. Would you rather go to the 5th tiebreaker instead?

On further thought.... This is why ties should be encouraged.

It's exponentially better than "number of points allowed against common opponents" or whatever the system is for ways you can miss the playoffs.

 

[Ring 6]

My mental model for this is soccer. Their shootout has a lot of things going for it that the 2-pointer doesn't have going for it.

To me the biggest one is that it's easy on the officials. Deciding what is a clean goal is easy. In the NFL so much is going to be on the refs deciding to throw a flag or keep it in their pocket.

Also it's relatively quick and easy to have a best-of-five shootout. NFL would mean getting 22 guys onto the field, run a play, get a different 22 guys onto the field, etc.

Yet I do like the idea of deciding it on the field with no chance of a tie.

Just keep playing football until someone scores.

 

[Hammer of Thor]

Forget about overtime. Move to undertime. Before the game, field goal kickers kick five 60 yard attempts each (more if tied after 5) until one kicker wins. That team gets the advantage so if the actual game ends as a tie, the team who won undertime wins.

 

[Pape]

It never should have been changed in 2022... They changed the rule because basically the bills defense could hold off Mahomes from tying the game in the last 13 seconds of regulation play... It wasn't "fair" they say, because buffalo lost the coin flip...

the first rumblings about changing OT came when the Pats beat KC in 2018... won in Sudden Death OT...

The need to just live with the fact that sometimes life isn't fair... go back to sudden death...

 

[farn]

I like the tie. Listen, you touched the ball so many times. And you had chances to stop the score so many times. You tie 40-40 ? Neither team deserves a win for that BS after hours of play.

Tie. Take that overrated GB / DAL.

 

[Bill Lee]

I like the tie. Listen, you touched the ball so many times. And you had chances to stop the score so many times. You tie 40-40 ? Neither team deserves a win for that BS after hours of play.

Tie. Take that overrated GB / DAL.

That's kinda how I was thinking after staying up entirely too long to watch that damn game.

Yet, not having closure makes it even worse to me, both psychologically and mathematically.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

If the current postseason rules were in place in 2016, Atlanta would have gotten a chance at tying/going for two to win.

Of course. The NFL had to change any rule that any doofus imagined was favoring the Patriots

From OT rules to declaring yourself an eligible or ineligible receiver, regardless of jersey number and inflaming Harbawl,

I am surprised they didn't outlaw the double pass, after the Edelman to Amendola play

 

[ctpatsfan77]

That's a good point. They'd have to look carefully at all the data with the new kickoff to figure out how easy it would be. Kickers are also kicking longer these days for some reason.

Not sure what the reason is, but to quote an article from a decade ago, “It’s like the Hacker Gods got lazy and just set a constant Kicker Improvement parameter throughout the universe.”

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Also:
Mahomes never got the ball!
- Tony Romo after the Pats won the 2018 AFCCG.

All KC's defense had to do was stop *one* of their third down conversions.

 

[AQPE]

I blame Peter King for this overtime nonsense. Should have kept his big fat mouth shut, now we have all these stupid if then else rules.

Tienerdness

 

[jmt57]

Want to eliminate ties?

Both teams are given a loss if the score is tied at the end of regulation in a regular season game.

 

[Nikolai]

I like the MMA idea. The idea of Vrabes beating the **** out of Andy Reid at the 50 yard line brightens the corners of this dark soul.

Conversely, if we don't like the coin flip, we could always have teams line up at the 35 yard line and have the zebras put a ball at the 50 yard line. First team to have positive possession possesses the ball first in OT.

There was so much that just stunk to high heaven about the Brady suspension it's hard to know where to start but the courts eventually holding that the commissioner had the CBA granted right to suspend a player regardless of the validity of the stated reason changed the way I've looked at the game ever since. From that moment on I've never doubted that it's only a sport to the fans, for everyone else involved it is straight up business.

A lot of people also don't realize that, in their zeal to see Brady go down, the case has had significant implications for labor law. With the advent of AI, I feel the chickens are coming home to roost soon.

 

[Nikolai]

All KC's defense had to do was stop *one* of their third down conversions.

Yeah, this is the worst example people can bring up. Three 3rd and 10s and not even one stop.

 

[Steve102]

The college method is the best, most reasonable solution.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

There was so much that just stunk to high heaven about the Brady suspension it's hard to know where to start but the courts eventually holding that the commissioner had the CBA granted right to suspend a player regardless of the validity of the stated reason changed the way I've looked at the game ever since. From that moment on I've never doubted that it's only a sport to the fans, for everyone else involved it is straight up business.

I found myself strangely comforted and secure in reaction to CryGate, and later DefameGate.

They corroborated without a doubt the total corruption and total lack of credibility or integrity in the NFL, along with the total lack as well of any objectivity, intelligence or sportsmanship in opponents and their fans, and especially the media.

We had, along with $hundreds of thousands in fines, two first-round draft picks stolen. These are the greatest official impositions of an unfair competitive disadvantage in professional sports I've ever heard of.

Berman correctly ruled that you can't just make **** up to suspend somebody, even if the players agreed to a stupid CBA. The NFL acknowledged in court that they had zero evidence.

Goodell spent nearly $15 million in total as the league appealed to the higher court, which ruled that someone in Goodell's position can legally deprive an employee of work for no substantive reason at all: Because the employee is, for example, black, female, gay, or plays for a particular team.

I estimate that 99% of the population of the United States believes that the New England Patriots 'cheated', which they never did.

Publicly stating some of the simple facts I've stated above is equivalent to publicly denouncing antisemitism in Nazi Germany.

 

[TinhWoodhead]

The change from sudden death to each team having a posession was in order to make it fair.

But including a ten-minute time limit contradicts the fairness theory. Team A takes possession and can go on a drive for more than five minutes. That means Team B gets less time, sometimes substantially less.

Eliminate the clock for the first two possessions (or for the entire OT).


Another possibility: start out at the 50-yard line.
Each team gets one down, then alternate, switching the two teams from offense to defense.
No punting allowed.
First team to score wins.

…or Hail Mary’s from the 50yd line: whoever catches it, win.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

I'm old-fashioned, ties are okay and typically occur when neither team deserves the win.