The coin toss to start overtime in NFL games can be conflated with Major League Baseball's terminally lame "ghost runner" rule.
Thursday night's Tampa Bay at Atlanta game was tied 30-30 at the end of regulation — whereupon the Falcons won the grossly unfair coin toss, elected to receive (naturally), and drove down the field to score a game-winning touchdown, without the Bucs ever getting an opportunity to possess the ball during the extra period.
The same thing had happened in the season's opening week, when the Rams and Lions were tied at 20 at the end of regulation; Detroit won the coin toss — and the game, also without the Rams ever getting a chance on offense.
And both of these games happened on prime time — for all the nation to see.
This means that after 78 games, two teams were denied their "turn at bat" in overtime — putting the NFL on pace to have seven such games in the 2024 season (rounded off to the nearest game), or 7 percent of all games.
Seven percent may sound pretty rare. But a rare disease is not rare to the person who gets it — and dies of it. (What if Tampa Bay misses the playoffs by one game — or on tie-breakers?)
The NFL's adamant refusal to do anything about this can be chalked up to sheer stubbornness, in that there is no logical reason not to give both teams at least one possession in overtime.
Furthermore, the owners can get creative if they do decide to change the overtime rules.
One possibility is to forbid the coin-toss winners (assuming they elect to receive the kickoff to start overtime) to go for two if they do score a touchdown on their first possession — but allow their opponents to go for two if they come back and score a touchdown (Ron Rivera would probably be re-hired as an NFL head coach if this is done).
Another thing that could be done is to always give the home team the ball first in overtime; since this would increase the winning percentage of home teams over the course of the entire season, it would foster "competitive balance," which the owners crave even though most fans loathe.
And if the first team to possess the ball in overtime scores a touchdown — but the extra point is blocked, etc., and the opponents run it back for two points? Then all the latter would need to do is score a touchdown on their possession, winning the game by 2 points.
But what if guaranteeing both teams at least one possession in overtime leads to a couple of tie games every year because of the 10-minute overtime period? So much the better — because in that case, many if not most division and playoff races would be decided by half-game margins (e.g., 10-7 over 9-7-1) rather than the league's Byzantine tie-breaking procedures, which can be found on Pages 32 and 33 of the 2024 NFL Record & Fact Book — but only online since the printed edition is no longer sold in stores (and can only be purchased for exorbitant prices on such websites as eBay).
In addition, the winner of the hallowed coin toss to start overtime could still try to use up the entire 10 minutes, and win the game with a walk-off field goal (or touchdown). This could lead to "power backs" like Derrick Henry and Rhamondre Stevenson coming into greater demand in both the draft and free agency.
There is far too much at stake in every NFL game to let chance decide the winner of any game.
The league has already gotten rid of this in the playoffs. It is time for them to do it in the regular season, as well.
If chance should decide anything in the NFL, let it be in a draft lottery.
Leave a Comment