NFL Overtime: It Sucks, Let’s Change It

I have heard every rational argument there is for and against the current NFL overtime system.

I know that it seems unfair that one team gets the ball and can win the game on the basis of a coin flip.

On the other hand, I understand that each team already had a legitimate chance to win the game in regulation, so who cares if one team doesn’t touch the ball?

But I’m done with rational thought. Let’s move this argument to where it really belongs: emotional comprehension.

Afterall, this is sports, and personally, I can’t wrap my senses around the idea of one team getting to touch the ball, while the other team doesn’t, and having the game decided in accordance with a coin flip. Ultimately, no one wants to see a Super Bowl decided in that manner, so why should any other game come down to that type of logic?

I don’t care what you say; allowing one team to win a coin toss, drive the ball down field and kick the game-winning field goal is preposterous, no matter how much you argue that the defense has a chance to stop them. What if throughout the entire game, the teams have been moving the ball up and down the field and neither team can stop the other? That would give the team that wins the coin toss the ball and the win, and we would blame the losing team’s defense for the game, even though we know the other team’s defense had no chance of getting a stop either.

So why do so many people make the argument that the defense has an opportunity to stop the other team? Because those people are stupid. In a situation where the offenses are dominating the game, the NFL overtime system would equate to an NBA overtime format in which the first team to score a basket wins.

And the NFL overtime system, as it currently stands, does not defend against such a notion. That’s why last year’s MVP, Peyton Manning, never touched the ball in a playoff game against the San Diego Chargers last year.

And even in a defensive struggle, if such a game goes to overtime, can the defense really be expected to play the exact same way it did during regulation? No coach in their right mind is going to send an all-out blitz in overtime with the same gusto that they would in the 1st quarter. The stakes change in overtime, and it’s just illogical not to employ some added degree of “safe play” into the defensive calls. This is why it is so much easier for a team to drive the ball down the field in overtime.

Teams should be given an equal chance to win the game in overtime. I really don’t care which measure is instituted to make this happen, so long as both team’s get to touch the ball. If that means implementing a college overtime system, then so be it. If it means playing an entire quarter with the stipulation that each team must touch the ball, then so be it. I don’t care.

Collin Cowherd, on the contrary, made the argument that arguing for a fair overtime is silly, if we don’t also argue that the coin toss at the beginning of game’s affects the outcome. On his radio show, Cowherd noted that 10 of 14 teams that scored first this past Sunday, went on to win the game.

Now if that isn’t the dumbest conclusion and evidence argument that I have ever heard.

He was seriously comparing a team winning the coin toss in overtime and going on to win the game, to a team scoring first in regulation and going on to win the game after playing series and series of offense and defense. First of all, those aren’t comparable issues. In regulation, teams score first without winning the coin toss all of the time. Heck a team can score first in the 2nd quarter, so it was a bad comparison from the jump. Also, does Cowherd, and those on his side, not account for the fact that this stat is bias? Isn’t the better team more likely to score first? Meaning that this is kind of a self-fulfilling stat; because the better team is both likely to score first and win the game. Lastly, even if I acknowledge his irrelevant stat, the fact is, if a team scores first in regulation, the other team does have a chance to respond, therefore making it fair! And that’s exactly what we want in overtime.

So let’s just make overtime fair, people. I don’t care how we do it, just do it. I just don’t want to watch another overtime game during the NFL playoffs in which an MVP like Peyton Manning doesn’t even get a chance to step on the field, because he didn’t win some stupid flip of a coin.

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