It’s the end of the fourth quarter and the score is tied. Which method of resolution do you prefer?
Everyone goes home and you call it a tie.
A tie. Barring that since many consider it unpalatable, play more football, in whatever time increments you care to set. Never will I understand the tendency among sports leagues to settle ties by having teams engage in an activity that is almost, but not quite, the sport in question.
The purpose of a football game is to determine which of two competing teams will defeat the other at football, yes? Given that, when time expires without producing a clear winner (and we presume that a tie is unacceptable), is the purpose of the game better achieved by determined by A) playing more football, or B) playing a football-like subgame that is altered from the initial game in one or more crucial aspects?
Baseball gets this right. They don’t like ties, so when nine innings doesn’t tell the whole story, they just continue playing the damn game until somebody wins. They don’t stop after the ninth and say “Okay, we need a clear victor here, so here’s what we’re gonna do: same basic game, but you only get two strikes, and first one to score or have three batters walked wins it all.”
The only way to determine the better football team is by having them play football. If you don’t want to do that — takes too long, too much risk of injury, or whatever — then suck it up and call it a tie. Anything else, and you might as well pick a winner by having the head coaches play parcheesi.
I lean toward “Stick with the tie”. Is there thought to be some big problem with regular-season games ending in a tie?
Play another regular quarter. In regular season, if its still tied at the end it remains a tie. In the playoffs you keep going quarter by quarter until someone wins. Simple and fair. I’m not sure how long a typical OT round lasts, but if itaverages 7 minutes or so, playing the full 15 won’t kill them. Touchdowns retain their advantage over FGs (until the last few minutes of course), which is as it should be.
Ties for the regular season.
Additional quarters for post-season. Roland Orzabal put it very well. They should play football, not some football like game, no sudden death, and no weird placement of the ball on the 25.
Sudden death, but the first team cannot end the game on a field goal. If the first posession end in a field goal the other team gets a chance. If they score a field goal, it’s sudden death from then on. If they score a
TD they win. If they don’t score they lose.
A fifth quarter
If that is not acceptable, sudden death provided each teams get s one possession, but not the college way where you start on what is it, the 30?
Otherwise a tie.
What I find interesting is that the sports that developed with ties (football, soccer, hockey) all have sudden death whereas sports that early on got rid of ties have extra periods without sudden death (baseball, basketball)
Soccer does not have sudden death (or a golden goal as it’s usually called) – at least not usually. They play full over time period(s), then go to a shootout.
My preferences:
- One 15 minute overtime period, played like a normal quarter.
- End game in tie
20 notches down - Current system
In the regular season the NHL has 5 minutes of sudden death then a shootout. Playoffs are sudden death for as long as needed. I sat through 3 OTs one night.
One thing I’d definitely like is for an overtime win to count less than a regulation time win. Award points like 4 for a regulation win, 3 for an overtime win, 2 for a tie, one for an overtime loss, 0 for a regulation loss. If they did this there’d be less need for the plethora of of tie-breakers they have. Rankings would first be on total points earned. Two 10-6 teams would often have different number of points if they’d been involved in a over-time games.
Sudden death, but with the guarantee that each team gets a possession. Drive for a TD with the kickoff, and you have to kick it off right back. Sudden death from there.
The NCAA rule is about the lamest thing ever invented. Get it out of my life.
I follow Rugby League. Until a few years ago a tie was a tie (although we call it a draw). Even Grand Finals were replayed the next week if necessary. For some reason sudden death overtime was introduced in 2003.
Roland Orzabal’s post explains exactly why I hate it. In RL the field goal is only worth 1 point and is a tactical device. A converted try is worth 6 points so a team leading by 6 or 12 late in a game may kick one to cause the other team to need an extra score to gain the lead. They are far harder to kick than in American football because they are drop kicks and other players can’t block for the kicker, who often gets hit. So it is far from routine to kick them. They probably happen in less than 10% of games.
However when “golden point” starts both teams just take every opportunity to take shots at field goals. Often their are several attempts before someone kicks one. Now if a real game of RL consisted of two teams doing nothing but take shots at field goal for 80 minutes you would not find anyone interested in playing or watching.
This. Sometimes you don’t win or lose, just like real life.
Sudden death overtime is a coin flip, not football. The advantage of a touchdown over a field goal goes out the window changing the game strategy completely. The OT rule changes made for this years NFL playoffs are bizarre, are the players really that feeble that they can’t play an extra quarter of football?
Current system, You have to play another quarter it would just mess with the standing to much. Tho this current season we have had many games go into OT it isn’t always going to be like that and only one game has ever ended in an actual tie and I think that was last year or the year before. I know it was the Eagles and someone else.
I have been convinced that sudden death is the best system from previous threads on this subject. The toll that an extra quarter takes on players and the fact that it still might end in a tie convinces me (If they used robots [as I am sure the owners are thinking about with the lockout looming] I would change my opinion). I don’t think the current system is perfect. I think it was either Omni or Ellis Dee who had the best improvement I ever heard for things as they are now. Have the overtime coin flip before game. This way when a team is driving at the end of the game they can base whether or not they will have the ball first on decisions regarding whether to play for the tie, or play for the win.
I don’t mind Sudden Death. It takes a full team to win the game. If your special teams can keep them held back, and your defense can hold them you give your chance to win the game. If not? Too bad.
Remember that lower grade GF a few years back, 13-14 attempts or thereabouts? Horrible stuff. Dump x 5, scramble a kick, repeat.
Draws where possible, and at least extra time before the madness descends.
I voted Other: Sudden Death, but no coin flip. The visiting team receives the choice of offense, defense, or field direction. (Essentially, just the same as NFL, except the visiting team automatically wins the coin toss.)
The home team already has home field advantage, if the visiting team manages a tie, they’ve played better to do so, and earned the coin toss.
End in a tie in the regular season. In the playoffs play a full quarter with a coin flip. Continue to play full quarters until one team is ahead at the end of the quarter.