I felt this story had to be written after I watched the Eagles and Giants compete last Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.  I watched the overtime period of this game and even though it was a great defensive battle, it should not have ended the way it did.  The final score in case you didn’t watch or see the post-game highlights, the Giants won 30-24. 

This was the result of the Philadelphia defense being on the field for just under 10 minutes in the overtime period.  Since I feel the score first-and-win is a joke, I felt I would comment on how I think the rules while comparing the NFL’s flawed system to other sports methods of determining a winner.

The overtime that is set up right now is very vague in the sense that one team gets the possession, with the chance to end the contest without the other team ever getting the ball.  This isn’t what happened in this particular game, but it is what happens in probably 75% of them.  I have no problem that the method to figure out who gets possession first is a coin toss, but the team who has to defend first should get a chance on offense as many times as the other does. 

In other words, the NFL should adopt the NCAA’s rules.  Their overtime procedure also begins with a coin toss, but guarantees equal possessions to both sides.  The offense will either score or not then the other team gets their try to either tie the other team or win it outright.  Again, that rarely happens as most of the time the squads will go two or three overtimes. But at least both teams get a fair chance to win the game.  More generally, this is also the way that Major League Baseball ends their extra innings.  There is one example of how the overtime rules could be changed.

If the NFL would still like to keep their overtime the same, they could shorten the time to five or ten minutes and then keep their sudden death rules.  Or they could do it NBA style and let the teams play for five minutes and if it is still tied play another quarter and so on and so forth.  This would be redundant but would be more effective than one team getting an opportunity to score and the other having to add one into the loss column.  Of course, this also might not fit into the NFL’s plan of keeping games as short as they can, but it would provide entertainment for the fans – the people who keep the NFL afloat.

Something else that might be popular with the fans would be the way soccer and hockey finishes off their ties.  Soccer plays a whole game then will play the World Cup overtime.  Hockey plays a whole game then play a five-minute period then goes for shootouts if the teams remained tied.  What would happen in the NFL would be again a five to ten minute overtime period and then if there was still a tie there would be a series of field goals.  This would also force teams to respect their kickers more and then kickers might actually be considered football players.  You could set up the “kickout” in a variety of ways.

You could have kickers start with 20 and if they both made go to 30 and so on.  A coin toss would have to be used because if the first kicker misses one then the second kicker can clinch it when it goes through the uprights.  Or you could just have the kickers kick from a set yardage and then when the first misses the other can finish the game.  To add an extra twist you could have the defenses play.  I am a fan and I would love to see that compared to the standard NFL format.

In conclusion, I feel all of those alternatives are better then what is currently the preferred method.  Don’t just think of regular season games think of the playoffs and maybe even the Super bowl.  Which one would you rather see?  A winning touchdown pass or a great defensive stop on 4th down.  A last second field goal in the 3rd overtime of an NBA style overtime would be fantastic.  Or the winning kick in a kickoff.  My pick would be a winning touchdown or defensive stop.  Of course I am a little biased because the defensive stop came to me when Ohio State deflected Ken Dorsey’s pass away in the 2002 Fiesta Bowl.  But you might pick something else or even have your own ideas.  But what still doesn’t change is a team doesn’t deserve to lose without a chance for redemption.  Not even Terrell Owens and the Cowboys.

Got any ideas?  I’d love to hear them.  Send questions or comments to andrew.uxley@atomicsportsmedia.com.