There's absolutely no way that ends up on a bulletin board somewhere
reimagining overtime: a proposal
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as has been widely publicized, last week the NFL passed a rule change that implements a "modified sudden death" format for overtime, but only in postseason games. it's caused a lot of hubbub over something that won't see the light of day until at least December, and may not come about for years. based on data from the 2000-2007 regular seasons, about 6% of games go to overtime. each season there are 11 playoff games, so there's only about a 50% chance (1-(0.94^11)) that this rule will be invoked in a given postseason. the reason for test-driving this non-starter rule only in the playoffs is daft: marginally increasing the odds of playing an extra series or two leads to a greater chance that players will be injured. if hypothetically playing maybe a few more minutes once every few years if you just so happen to make the playoffs and tie in regulation is that dangerous, we should be declaring ties after regulation. or proposing to shorten games to 40 minutes. or playing two-hand touch. that line of reasoning just doesn't hold water, especially if the NFL ever goes to an 18-game regular season.
so, despite the fact that the NFL rule change is so much hot air, the one thing it does accomplish is that it reopens the debate on how overtime should be handled. there seems to be general consensus that pure sudden death is stupid and broken. the college OT system—equal possessions from the 25—is better, but has never seemed perfect to me. here are my primary gripes with it:
so, despite the fact that the NFL rule change is so much hot air, the one thing it does accomplish is that it reopens the debate on how overtime should be handled. there seems to be general consensus that pure sudden death is stupid and broken. the college OT system—equal possessions from the 25—is better, but has never seemed perfect to me. here are my primary gripes with it:
- the 25 is too close. starting every possession in field goal range encourages conservative play. the only way to not have a legitimate shot at 3 points is to take a long sack or two short sacks/TFLs (out of 3 plays!), or to give up a turnover. lots of overtime games turn into field goal penalty shootouts.
- no special teams. overtime strictly pits offense versus defense. got a great punter? return man? too bad, they're sitting on the bench.
- no game clock. college overtime is nearly 15 years old, and every time i see a score bug sans game clock, it still weirds me out. this makes overtime play slow and deliberate. the NFL's sudden death OT suffers from the same problem, with the philosophy "pretend it's the 1st quarter again".
use an equal-possession system, because this is the only way to ensure fairness. but, instead of starting each possession from an arbitrary line of scrimmage, begin each possession with the defense kicking. a regular kickoff would pin the other team far too deep, and lead to long, defensive overtimes, the opposite of what we want. my solution is to have the defense take a free kick from their own goal line. the average result should be the offense starting around midfield, but a good return can yield a significant advantage. this solves both the special teams and the 25 yard line problem. the other modification would be to put 2:00 on the game clock at the start of each possession. each team will still get 1 timeout per OT. the presence of the game clock should encourage quick, risk-taking play. ground attack teams that like having the option of grinding out a touchdown in 9 meticulously-planned plays under the current OT format won't have that option...but is that such a bad thing?
anyhow, those are just some ideas that i've been kicking around for a while, and think could work well and make for pretty compelling OT football. would you want to see them implemented in the NFL? the NCAA? i'm interested to hear comments.
anyhow, those are just some ideas that i've been kicking around for a while, and think could work well and make for pretty compelling OT football. would you want to see them implemented in the NFL? the NCAA? i'm interested to hear comments.
March 28th, 2010 at 11:47 AM | 
For the playoffs, why not follow the basketball format
For the playoffs, why not follow the basketball format
March 28th, 2010 at 5:09 PM |
+ infinity to you sir!
+ infinity to you sir!
love the barely visible Mornhinweg zing! I almost didn't see it. Ha!
HAIL TO THE VICTORS.
March 28th, 2010 at 11:58 AM |
It's a Start
It's a Start
I've seen dumber ideas for NFL overtime -- for instance, there's the old NFL overtime rule and the new NFL overtime rule. Give the man a gold star.
If it were up to me, I'd say go ahead and kick off from the 30 and play as much as possible as a normal game, but I can see why you might want to put the offense in a better position to score. I don't like the 2:00 offense rule, it takes too much away from running teams. To spice things up, maybe you take away the extra point and make teams go for the two-point conversion. Offenses in the NFL are strong enough that it will be unusual for teams to go through an entire quarter without scoring. If the overtime goes on forever, it'll probably because it's a really good game.
The point is to make sure both teams get a fair chance to go on offense. This rule would do that. While I'd do things a little differently, this is at least as good as the College OT.
K-Smooth
He doesn't want to go down!
March 28th, 2010 at 2:10 PM |
probably right...
probably right...
yeah, i didn't think about the fact that 2:00 would be much more limiting under NFL rules than NCAA. of course you could go with CFL rules where the clock stops after every play under 3 min, but that would probably mess with people too much =)
March 28th, 2010 at 12:24 PM |
I wouldn't dismiss the injury
I wouldn't dismiss the injury
I wouldn't dismiss the injury concern. Note the number of players that go down in the fourth quarter compared to the first. Fatigued players tend to be less disciplined and more likely to do something to cause injury to themselves or others. Yes, players won't go to OT very often, but still, if you can minimize the incidence of injury in an OT session, it's worth doing.
(I do agree, though, that it's completely hypocritical to take that stance while pushing for an 18-game regular season.)
March 28th, 2010 at 8:04 PM |
Here's another idea
Here's another idea
What if the NFL just made a rule that says the game can't end if the score is tied? (Kind of the like the game-can't-end-on-a-defensive-penalty rule). Then you wouldn't necessarily have OT, just a series of un-timed downs that would effectively extend the fourth quarter. You could eliminate arbitrary advantages like the coin-toss rule and the removal of special teams play--the game would just continue from whatever the situation at the end of regulation time was.
I'm not really taking a position for or against this approach, just putting it out there as another morsel for thought.
"You will suffer humiliation when the team from my area defeats the team from your area." -- The Onion
March 29th, 2010 at 11:55 AM |
that could cause more problems
that could cause more problems
...than it would solve. scenario: tie game, team A gets the ball at their own 40 with 90 seconds in regulation. under that rule, they have _as long as they like_ to try to score. it's far better to have a system that encourages them to end it in regulation.
March 28th, 2010 at 9:34 PM |
NFL
NFL
I think they need to fully adopt the college football overtime, that would be really exciting.
Unless you're Marty Mornhinweg
Pick some fixed amount of time--say 8-12 minutes--and play until the time runs out. For the Super Bowl, keep playing until there's a winner. For other playoff games, go to the "shootout" (the college format) after a specified number of overtime periods.
And if there is injury concern for the regular season, just go back to accepting ties in regulation.