Recently many National Football League (NFL) teams have been victimized by the rules that are used for overtime in a game. Overtime is used as an extra playing time after the end of regular game time, if both teams are tied. Many different football levels have different versions of their overtime rules, and the NFL’s rules are by far the worst of them all.
The NFL overtime rules are definitely the worst way to handle this situation. In the event of overtime in the NFL, both team captains meet in the middle of the field and flip a coin. Whoever wins the toss gets to decide whether or not they want to start on offense or defense first. However, in the regular season nobody picks to kick the ball. Why? Well it’s because of the worst rules to exist.
Whoever scores a touchdown first wins the game. That means that if a team wins the toss, gets to be on offense first and scores, they win the game. This set of rules is designed to keep games short and prevent them from reaching long periods of time.
Football is a physical sport and while this condition is clearly built to keep players from getting hurt, it’s very unfair. If the first team on offense scores the opposing team doesn’t get a chance to respond back.
This keeps the game’s outcome out of the players hands. A football game’s outcome should be decided by the performances of the players on the field, not conditions making the game unfair.
No team benefits more from these rules than the Kansas City Chiefs. With Patrick Mahomes as a starter the Chiefs are 15-3 in overtime. That is a ridiculous ratio, especially considering in most of the games they have won in overtime, they have started with the ball. The Chiefs have made Super Bowls and won Super Bowls because of this fluke of a rule and I think I would respect them more if the rules were more fair.
To fix this issue, the NFL should consider switching to the college overtime rules for all games. While they have switched for playoff games, that is too small of a change. The college rules are a perfect in between.
In college, both teams start at the opposing teams 25 yard line and attempt to score a touchdown. If both teams do so, the game goes into a second overtime, but this time teams must go for a two-point conversion after a touchdown.
A two-point conversion is an alternative to kicking a single point field goal. Just like the name suggests, a two-point conversion is worth two points. The team going for it starts at the two yard line and has one chance to get into the end zone, if they succeed they get two points, but if they fail they get no points.
If both teams are still tied, they do a shootout, trading tries of two-point conversions until a team wins. This makes for much more entertaining games, as well as keeping the games fair for both teams.
Another way to remedy the issue is to keep most of the rules but give both teams a chance to score. This way the fate of a football game is not decided by who starts with the ball.
Both ideas are great ways to keep viewership high but also a great way to keep the game of football fair. This way, teams’ seasons don’t unfortunately end at the hands of a silver coin.
