Over what timespan are we talking? The recent changes to officiating that strongly favor the offense and the new kicking/return rules have likely skewed things a bit more. I suspect the sample size is too small to draw any firm conclusions but it really feels like a decisive advantage to the team that wins the toss. I also think that comparing the results of regular season OT featuring sub-par QBs and anemic offenses to playoff teams in OT is going to give you a bad result.
The Lions and Steelers had a tie this year…I wouldn’t suggest that as meaningful evidence that the offense winning the toss doesn’t have an advantage.
The more I think about it the more I think OT should just be an additional 15 minute quarter. No sudden death, no balancing out possessions, just keep playing normal football. The TV stations will bitch but who cares.
I like the college system, but if we’re not doing that, I can see something like what they do for the big international soccer tournaments - play 1-2 extra periods (10-15 minute) normally.
If the score still ends up tied, go to kicks. Maybe start from 50 yards and progressively move in until one side makes a kick and the other doesn’t.
ETA: Or rather start short and move out. Either way.
In the playoffs, as a game must not end in a tie, even the current rules are that they would just keep playing until someone scored. If you’re going to play a full fifth quarter, in theory, you could play a sixth full quarter.
The NFL has had six playoff games which have gone beyond the first fifteen-minute overtime quarter (though in two of those six games, the game ended within the first minute of the sixth quarter).
The issue that one would likely start to run into is simply exhaustion of the players, if they had to play an entire sixth quarter.
This makes no sense. We can criticize the Bills for what happened on that final drive, just like we can criticize the Chiefs for what happened on the drive before that. But that’s all regulation. It has precisely nothing to do with the equitability of OT. Had the Bills won the toss and scored and KC never got the ball the complaint would be exactly the same…
I know I’m late to the debate, so sorry for stirring back up…
Play another quarter. Works in the NBA and MLB. Sure, everyone will get tired, the games will get sloppy and the TV schedule will get thrown in a blender, but no one will complain about fairness or equitability.
And, honestly, a close NFL playoff game will draw better TV ratings than nearly anything else that the network would have on its schedule for later in the day/evening. so the networks wouldn’t complain much, anyway.
Every once in a while I DVR games and watch them with a 30-60 minute delay and fast forward through commercials and the announcers verbal diarrhea. I usually add 30 minutes to the recording time. I can envision a personal tragedy where I miss the end of a game like this one as the recording stops with 2 minutes left…
I really hate when entity A gets screwed by something, and then the scenario changes and entity A benefits by screwing entity B - who had nothing to do with entity A getting screwed over - and calling it “justice”.
If you think you got screwed, then making that thing happen to someone else isn’t justice, it just means that those people got screwed like you got screwed.
I know this sounds like a nitpick or a minor complaint, and a sports win/loss is not a serious outcome in the real world, but actually a lot of the evil in the world is justified using this mental framework, that a previous victim getting to victimize someone else in the same way is “justice”
Not exactly. In the NBA they play an extra 5 minute period, about 2/5 of the standard period. So it would be equivalent if you were proposing an NFL OT period of 6.5 minutes. I personally think another 15 minute quarter with the possibility of further 15 minute quarters is both boring and dangerous to the players. I think the current configuration creates a lot of drama and possible outcomes.
And I don’t think the NFL wants to borrow any OT tips from the endless games of MLB.
College OTs stretch on much longer than this would and the players survive just fine. I think the injury risk is a red herring and it would need to be supported by some data for me to consider it. I don’t see any meaningful uptick in injuries in the 4th quarter of a game (or at the end of a season for that matter) but this is just observational.
Except, you know, that the Chiefs got screwed by the OT rule in 2019. And the Bills got screwed by the OT rule in 2022. The Bills were not screwed by the Chiefs, as you are implying. In no way did the Chiefs make that happen to someone else.
And forgive us Chiefs fans for daring to think that perhaps we benefitted from karma or justice yesterday.
Although in 2021, the college OT rules were amended, once again. Now there are two possessions (if necessary) for each team, starting at the 25-yard line. On the second possession, a 2-point conversion must be attempted if a TD is scored.
Beginning with the third possession, however, each team runs only the two-point conversion. So each team runs just one play beginning with the third and all subsequent possessions.
If you think what happened to you is an injustice, then you shouldn’t believe that having that thing happening to someone else who had nothing to do with creating that injustice that happened to you is justice. If you believe you were the victims in 2019, then the Bills are victims in 2021, and it’s not “justice” because one victim was able to victimize someone else.
I realize it’s sports, and it’s not that important, and I’m not saying some grand injustice was committed. I’m saying that the logic is poor. If a victim of child abuse grows up and gets to abuse a child themselves, that’s not justice because they’re now “benefitting”/on the better side of something they were previously victimized for.
Again, I’m not saying those things are at all similar in scope or importance. Sports is silly. I’m just saying “ha, someone who got screwed got a chance to screw someone else in the same way!” is not justice. If you think the Chiefs not getting a chance to have possession in OT was an injustice in 2019, then it’s an injustice against the Bills in 2021, even if the beneficiaries were previously victims.
And, once again, I will state that the Chiefs did NOT screw the Bills. In 2019, the Patriots benefitted from the Chiefs getting screwed by a stupid rule and coinflip. Yesterday the Chiefs benefitted from the Bills getting screwed by the same stupid rule and coinflip.
Perhaps ‘justice’ wasn’t the correct term that I should have used. @Omniscient is right, and I should have used ‘karma’ instead. Would that have made my logic acceptable?
To the point made earlier by @storyteller0910, sudden death is fun. Walking off the field with a win because you scored a TD, or walking off defeated because your 4th down conversion was unsuccessful - those are some the most exciting moments. Kneeling down to run off the clock because you have the lead is not exciting for the audience. I can’t imagine a more boring OT…
You’re right. I should’ve phrased that more passively. Something like “And now we benefit from someone else getting screwed the same way” because it wasn’t the Chiefs that created the injustice (and hence “screwed” the Bills) but rather simply were the beneficiaries of an existing injustice.
I don’t think English has a word to describe the concept of “someone who was previously harmed by something becomes the beneficiary/other side of that thing even though the entity now getting harmed had nothing to do with the first occurrence” - I bet German does, those crazy bastards have a word for everything. I can see why “justice” or “karma” comes to mind if you’re only viewing it from the perspective of yourself/your rooting interest, because it feels like something that you suffered for was offset by an equal and opposite action later.
But I don’t think karma works either, since that’s sort of a cosmic justice. Karma might work if there was no new victim required to “restore the balance” of being on the right/wrong end of overtime rules. I think the key point is that it’s unempathetic to think this way. If you think that you/your team was the victim of an injustice before, and you think that all is right with the world and justice has been done because you/your team is now the beneficiary someone else being the victim in that same situation, that’s unempathetic towards the new victim. You’re essentially celebrating someone new being victimized in the same way you were, and thinking it actually makes the world a more just place (because you/your team is closer to balance in a vacuum) rather than creating a chain of injustice.
Now - I realize - this is just a silly football game. I’m being way too serious about this. I’m not saying any real great injustice occurred here. But a lot of the real evil that happens in the world is justified by exactly this sort of mindset, and so it makes me uncomfortable to see people passing victimhood forward and calling it “justice”.
Anyway, I’ve said my piece and I realize it’s a hijack and not important, so you can call it whatever you want.