I think though you can even make an argument that it is unfair in a statistical sense. Follow me through the rabbit hole…
A football team is really two teams toward one end, the offense and the defense. To determine the better team one team against another means that each offense goes up against each defense. The cries of unfair are probably based on the fact that overtime is not a test of both sub-teams, rather just one, based on a coin flip. So while the coin flip is obstensibly fair, it is not a fair determination in that it there is nothing in the rule to guarantee that teams are competing equally.
Now I am not saying I buy that, after all offesnes and defenses had 60 minutes prior to overtime, so I don’t really think sudden death OT is all that unfair, this isn’t baseball. On the other hannd, that doesn’t mean there aren’t reasonable alternatives to the current method.
This is a very pertinent point. Assume you have two offensive minded teams (think '99 Rams), who can pretty much score at will. If they go into overtime, then the coinflip is much more likely to determine the winner, while for two defensive minded teams, you’ll probably find that the coin toss is not that far off from fair.
This is important, because football is the only of the few major sports, where you can see one game be 35-24 (Pittsburgh vs. San Diego) and another 13-10 (Baltimore vs.Tennessee) in the same week. That is, there’s a relatively high level of variance in the scores. If the first game had somehow managed to go into overtime, the winner of the coin toss is fairly likely to score on their first possession, thus giving them an unfair advantage; in the second, it’s much less likely, so the advanage is less.
But this is all the more reason why the system is unfair. Whether or not you like the strategy, there are plenty of offensive minded teams, and it is a workable strategy over the length of a regulation football game, but they get a distinct disadvantage under the special set of rules that is overtime. I wouldn’t mind so much because I enjoy watching a defensive game, but this is decidedly not what the NFL, the teams, or the fans want.
Take an extreme example, imagine you have two teams with great offenses and no defense, and regulation ends at 63-63. Surely, that coin toss almost certainly determines the game, no? Or a more reasonable example, imagine you have a team with a great offense and a terrible defense, versus a team that’s fairly average in both and you have a somewhat high scoring game of 31-31, because the average defense can’t stop the great offense, and the terrible defense can’t stop the average offense; this scenario is not unlikely. Surely it’s reasonable to believe it’s more likely than not that whoever gets the ball first is going to score.
This is why the game really needs to have a way of forcing an OT that’s as much like regulation as possible. Either offense or defense alone does not define the quality of a team.
Okay [going back to my earlier point about basketball OT, since nobody followed up on that], pretend that there’s a coin flip at the beginning of hoops OT, winner gets first possession, and it’s sudden death. Since the offense scores at least one point on about 60% of each ball possession, they have that % chance to win the game right there. And even if the defense does stop them, they themselves, on their own possession, only have a 60% chance of winning, else the first team gets it back again. And note that the 3-point shot no longer matters (tho you can take one, if you wish), because you only need one point.
So why isn’t basketball OT sudden death? You tell me.
The comparison isn’t apt because in football the concept of offense and possession is much more rigid and structured. Also there are literally hundreds of possessions in a basketball game and reducing the outcome to 1 possession would be very anti-climactic. In football there are usually something like 15 possessions so reducing it to one possession is more indicative of who is better, though still unsatisfying.
But this is precisely the problem. One possession isn’t indictative at all. Football has the decidedly difficult situation of being between Basketball and a game like Hockey or Soccer, where sudden death is pretty darn close to perfectly fair, especially with Hockey where the first possession is determined by a face-off and not a purely random number.
That is, sudden death is representative in a low scoring affair (which is not that far off from Hockey or Soccer, where there’s a lower score-to-possession ratio), but it is decidedly not representative of who is better in a high scoring one (like basketball, where there’s a high score-to-possession ratio).
I’m not saying it is. All I’m saying is that a football possession is more indicative than basketball. I’m not implying that it’s adequate. The thrust of the point is that basketball and football are too fundamentally different to draw any meaningful comparisons between the two in this context.
I can’t completely agree with that. Citing something that was said upthread, that 60% of possessions in Basketball end up in at least 1 point scored, I think there are at least some situations in football where that’s not only representative, but exceeded. Let’s use the 12 possessions per (works out to 3 per quarter, or about 2:30 per possession). Assuming about a 1-1 ratio of touchdowns and fieldgoals, and 60% of those possessions being a score, and you end up with 36 points scored, if they’re being scored at the same rate that they would be in basketball. It’s not terribly uncommon to see a high scoring tie game around 36 points.
That means that, in the case of a high scoring football game, the only real difference between basketball and football is the number of possessions. So, in the case of a high scoring game, sudden death in football is probably about as categorically unfair as sudden death basketball game.
Granted, this is the exception in football, where it’s the norm in basketball, but any overtime consideration should be fair in all circumstances, or at least as many as possible. Even if you assume the average score per possession is lower for football–probably around 35-40% which works out to 21-24 PPG using my numbers and 23.0 is the median PPG for 2008–basketball is probably still a lot closer, in general, to football in terms of scores per possession than Soccer or Hockey.
FWIW, if we can agree on some set of numbers (possessions per game, and scores per possession), I’d be happy to run some statistical simulations and see exactly how unfair the current OT system is.
If the Stats are changing significantly towards being unfair then the rule should change.
Overtime should just be a normal extra quarter, like an implicit 15 min the clock does not stop by going outta bounds and NO TIME OUTS. That should be enough time for both Offenses to get a shot of a TD rather than a field goal decider.
The ball should be kicked to the home team regardless who had the ball at the end of the 4th. That’s home field advantage. Screw the coin flip.
If by chance that doesn’t resolve the situation then its a tie.
Blaster Master just argued my argument, so I’ll just add that there is a reason why Arena Football, at least, gives both teams one possession in OT, and he nailed it. Sudden death would be just as silly as it would be in basketball. [Checking the Canadian variety…] CFL is virtually identical to the NCAA’s method.
Overtime does not need to be longer (any rule that mandates that each team have a possession will do this), it needs to be better (the team that wins the coin toss should not win significantly more than 50% of the time). I’ve already said this before, but just shift where the opening (Edit: overtime) kickoff takes place (to the 35 or 40 yard line) to restore the pre-1994 balance on coin-toss/overtime winners.
Bit of an aside here, but since it was brought up…
Actually ties are not settled by “shootouts” in soccer, they simply end in ties (properly called draws). The only time games are decided by “shootouts” (which are not shootouts at all [that’s hockey], but a series of static “kicks from the penalty mark”) are in knockout rounds of tournaments when one team must advance to the next round.
Even then, when the score is tied at the end of regulation, two complete 15 minute periods of “extra time” (what Americans call overtime) is played in an attempt to find a winner. But if the score is still tied at the completion of extra time then kicks from the penalty mark are taken to decide who advances to the next round of competition.
It is important to note, however, that if the score is tied at the end of extra time (say for example 2-2) then the game is officially recorded as a draw. The team who then goes on to score more kicks from the penalty mark advances in the competition, but they do NOT win the game. It is still a draw. For example, the 2006 World Cup final between France and Italy was tied after regulation, and then still tied after extra time so it went to “penalties”. The Italian side scored more “penalties” so they won the World Cup, but they did not win the game. It was a draw.
BTW, the reason they are known as “kicks from the penalty mark” rather than “penalty kicks” is because no penalty has occurred and the two situations are governed by different rules.
I may find that methodology acceptable, except I’m not sure how it takes into account the improvement of kickers in the last 14 years either. I think storyteller covered that point.
The OP has a solution to the FIRST OT, but what if no one scores and we have to have a second OT? That’s basically back to the current scheme unless it is addressed in advance.
It is an aside, but I’m glad you brought it up. I’m not a fan of soccer, so I was unaware that they were still recorded as draws and the proper terminology and all that. However, the 2006 World Cup was exactly what I had in mind when I made that comment. I was watching it because I was dating someone at the time who had some interest in soccer, not being from the US herself. I rememer seeing the end of that match and I found the kicks extraordinarily anti-climactic; I’m not generally enthralled with soccer, but I found that ending even less so. To have the greatest prize in the sport decided by the just seems wrong. At least football has had the good fortune of never having a Super Bowl go into overtime. As a note, there was at least one NFL Championship that was decided that one (notably, the 1958 Championship, aka “The Greatest Game Ever Played”).
The second OT is treated like the second quarter. There is no kick-off, they just switch sides. I do believe there is a kick-off for the third OT, and I’m not sure if there’s a precedence for that, but it would easily be handled by swapping the kicking and receiving teams like in regulation.
So… I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on this. Instead of coming in here and continuing to bang my head against a wall by arguing… (I don’t think anybodies opinion is really going to change anyway. Plus, I’m clearly in the minority. Now I know what it’s like to be a republican around these parts… yeesh)… I’m trying to better understand the “it isn’t fair” crowd.
See, to me it has always been fair. I’m not sure I understand why it fully isn’t. I have come to the following conclusion:
Offensively a team’s goal during regulation is to score a touchdown. A field goal is somewhat of a consolation prize. In OT a teams goal changes to solely a field goal. The field becomes a good 40 yards shorter (at a minimum… probably realistically about 30-35 yards shorter). So what in regulation would be celebrated as a minor win (holding them to a FG) for your defense is the end of the game in OT. This is the feeling that we need to change in order to make OT seem more fair. Is this on target at all or completely off base?
Tof, I don’t think that’s it at all. To my mind, what is “unfair” about it is that you can point to one of the teams and state that they have a 60% chance of winning OT and the other team 40%, by only knowing which one won the coin flip. It’s one thing for one team to have a better chance due to having home field, or a bye week, or some other game influencing factor. It’s quite a different thing for that team to have a better chance due to winning a coin flip.
WRT to the game itself, the trouble is that in the game today, it’s too easy to score. The easier it is to score, the more unfair a sudden death overtime becomes, since possession is determined by a coin flip.
Right, but there has to be a reason why the odds are skewed to one side so badly. ideally it would be 50% of the time, right?
Has anybody done any studies on percentage of times the coin flip winner wins by FG?
28/72 win on first possession and 44/72 have won overall. Despite both teams having had the ball in 44 games… (The main “Peyton never had the ball” beef) and despite the role reversal of the coin flip winner now suffering from a 2.5 to 1 disadvantage only 16/44 will win if the defense is able to make a stop and then punt their first possession… The CFW still is said to have an overall advantage because they are able to gain field position.
So, yes- the stats tell us that the coin flip winner has an advantage, you are right. What I am trying to get at is why it is such an advantage. The stats also tell us that the advantage diminishes if they are forced to punt. But, overall they say that the CFW win most OT games.
I posit that it is due to the FG becoming a major focus and not a consololation prize on offense, and sometimes a minor win for defense. It now becomes a the game as it were. I think the reversal of the stat to only 16/44 CFW will win if they punt is what put it into my head. The reason the CFW is seen to have such an advantage- is because an outlyingly high amount win on first possession. Surely not all of these are touchdowns. I would wager a very very high amount are touchdowns. An good number of which are teams that got to between the 20/30 yard line and then cooled down their offense to play for the FG. Angled their kicker to the right hash, etc etc.
Plus- no matter how we change the rules- can we agree that there is not a more fair away to decide who starts with possession than a coin flip? It is 50/50. While we surely can make rules that will even the odds to closer to the 50/50 ideal- the coin flip winner will ALWAYS probably have an overall stat advantage because they have both first crack & possible ability to control field position throughout the OT period. Unless, of course, we go to a college type OT system.
The reason has been touched on a couple of times here, it’s mostly changes to the kicking game. They’ve pushed back the kickoff location and lowered the tees so there are fewer touchbacks, giving the receiving team better field position. Kickers are also better at hitting long field goals, so the offense needs to gain fewer yards before being able to score.
I agree with this. Unfortunately, the way the game is today, the coin flip, while fair, has arguably too much impact on the outcome of the game.