Unpopular Opinion: Last night showed that the NFL OT rules are great as-is

[Tetsujin]

1 hour ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I think the rules could be improved perhaps, but they’re ok/fair now.

It’s not a cheap win if a team marches the ball down the field and punches it in during overtime.

NE got torched for 24 points in the 4th quarter. They should've had to get on the field in OT to sack up vs Mahomes. A coin toss helped prevent that. I thought it was a bad look for the NFL.

[sunnygsm]

Full props to the Pat's offense in OT. I don't think the current rules are the worst. That said, NE vs KC was clearly a game where neither defense could make a stop late in the game. In those settings, it feels a bit anti-climactic not to see the other offense get a chance to respond. 

[Eagles23]

Where does it end? Okay each team gets a possession. Team A scores, Team B matches, now its sudden death. Team A scores again. Fans of Team B cry that their team didnt get another chance to match.

 

Like no, play defense. Football is beautiful because its the ultimate team sport

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

10 minutes ago, Eagles23 said:

Where does it end? Okay each team gets a possession. Team A scores, Team B matches, now its sudden death. Team A scores again. Fans of Team B cry that their team didnt get another chance to match.

Like no, play defense. Football is beautiful because its the ultimate team sport

Exactly. If your defense can't make a stop, your offense doesn't just "deserve" to get on the field because you have a good QB. It's a team sport.

[evilpimp972]

1 hour ago, Eagles23 said:

Where does it end? Okay each team gets a possession. Team A scores, Team B matches, now its sudden death. Team A scores again. Fans of Team B cry that their team didnt get another chance to match.

 

Like no, play defense. Football is beautiful because its the ultimate team sport

Team A scores a FG

Team B scores a FG

And on and on

Where does it end ? When it's the playoffs 

[ET80]

3 hours ago, freak_of_nature said:

NE got torched for 24 points in the 4th quarter. They should've had to get on the field in OT to sack up vs Mahomes. A coin toss helped prevent that. I thought it was a bad look for the NFL.

Well, if the leading defense in sacks bothered hitting the field on any of those third downs, you would have got what you wanted.

Alas, they didn't. They got walked on, in fact. Trying to re-write the rules because of that reeks of "everyone gets a medal" culture.

If KC wanted to get their offense on the field, they should have played defense. Period.

[MWil23]

What we have now is a lot better than the old "sudden death" rules. That said, I would like to see something more or less where each team gets a possession, similar to the college format, but not identical. I'd have something like:

1. Each team is guaranteed 1 possession

2. Each team possesses the ball at their own 25 yard line (touchback)

3. After each team possesses the ball once, the game is over, pending the result. If the game is tied, team B (who started on defense) possesses the ball first, team A plays defense, etc.

4. Teams MUST go for 2 IMMEDIATELY, starting with the 1st OT, for scored TD

[TXsteeler]

23 hours ago, JustAnotherFan said:

which leads to higher scoring games to appeal to kids and casuals.

lmao.

[evilpimp972]

52 minutes ago, TXsteeler said:

lmao.

I love our everyone here want the defense to make a stop but don't want to see if the other teams defense can make a stop too.

I love defense, I watched the nfl because of the LOB, and yes, I would have love to see if my defense could've stop Rodgers after we score in OT in 2014.

[ET80]

11 minutes ago, evilpimp972 said:

I love our everyone here want the defense to make a stop but don't want to see if the other teams defense can make a stop too.

Why would we want that? The game has already gone on for 60 minutes, we know who can do what for the most part.

That drive in OT is strictly who can perform at their best with everything on the line. It's not like KC didn't understand what would happen if they didn't stop NE - they knew that the bare minimum is holding NE to three, if they failed to do that, their season is over. 

If that doesn't get a defense to play at their highest level, nothing will.

[TXsteeler]

23 hours ago, lancerman said:

Which to me is stupid. Because there are really only so many options. 

Option 1: College rules. It has a massive advantage to the team that goes 2nd. It removes the special teams and field positioning aspect of the game. It's brutal and NFL players are going to hate it with the emphasis on safety. 

Option 2: Give both teams an automatic offensive possession. This works in theory. However, lets say the Patriots get the coin toss. They go on offense and drive down for a score. The Chiefs go on offense, they drive down for a score (they also have an advantage knowing they need to go for it on 4th). Then the Patriots drive for another score. While now the coin toss still mattered because the team that won got the crucial possession because of winning the coin toss. It just adds in an extra step. But it's relevant here because the complaint is that most people think both teams will score. 

Option 3: Add a full quarter. Nobody would agree to this. It's too brutal

Option 4: Both teams' offenses start with the ball at their opponent's 30 yard line at the same time. All 44 starters/players are on the field at the same time. Play starts for both teams at the same time. From there, there are no downs, and the first team to score a TD wins. If a team loses the ball due to a fumble or an interception, they lose, if a team is backed up due to penalties, or sacks, to the 45 yard line, they lose. If either or both of these things happen to both teams during the same play (while both offenses have the ball in play), the play is restarted for both teams as if neither of the turnovers/penalties/sacks occurred. All offensive penalties are now 5 yard penalties. If the refs need to stop play for any reason, then it must be stopped for both teams until it can be resumed.

In the regular season, this lasts for 15 minutes until the game is considered over and results in a tie.

During the playoffs if neither team has scored by the 15 minute mark then they may elect to send in kickers to stand at the 45 yard line and attempt kicks for three points each. A team may win by reaching 6 points this way.

During the Superbowl, the overtime format will go on for up to 30 minutes. If Neither team has scored a TD within 30 minutes, all offensive players are suspended from the NFL for the following season, and the defenses are merged into a single team and awarded the Lombardi trophy.

I would appreciate any feedback on this idea.

This may seem like a joke, but when you think about it, this would actually be the most exciting thing in sports if the rules were tweaked right and if it could be pulled off. You would need a second set of refs for it to work, which is the biggest difficulty. Players would also have to play through the whistle because they can't be sure the whistles aren't coming from the other side of the field. Covering it properly would be up to the TV networks, but the refs could do silent penalty calls. I also assumed a 40 yard barrier would be enough that players would likely never run into players from the other side of the field on accident, but maybe it could work with more or less. I also assumed that a 10 yard barrier would be far too small for safety, so that's why I added a way for the game to end due to offenses getting backed up by sacks. We could potentially replace yardage lost behind the 30 yard line with stoppages of play for that offense only, but this could likely get boring if both offenses are struggling and just standing around, although we could have offensive play stoppages cancel each other out. This ruleset is likely not perfect yet and I may have forgotten to consider other options.

[TXsteeler]

25 minutes ago, evilpimp972 said:

I love our everyone here want the defense to make a stop but don't want to see if the other teams defense can make a stop too.

I love defense, I watched the nfl because of the LOB, and yes, I would have love to see if my defense could've stop Rodgers after we score in OT in 2014.

I was just mocking your idea of football being watched by "kids and casuals" as if there is somehow a more "mature and hardcore" group of people watching a game.

[TXsteeler]

18 minutes ago, ET80 said:

Why would we want that? The game has already gone on for 60 minutes, we know who can do what for the most part.

That drive in OT is strictly who can perform at their best with everything on the line. It's not like KC didn't understand what would happen if they didn't stop NE - they knew that the bare minimum is holding NE to three, if they failed to do that, their season is over. 

If that doesn't get a defense to play at their highest level, nothing will.

I think it's only fair because a defense is only half a football team, and there are several football teams that have very good offenses and very bad defenses. And in the current overtime format, when a team like that loses the coinflip to a team with a good offense, they are very likely to just lose the game based on that coinflip.

The purpose of OT is simply to end the game without letting it go on forever, it's format should be completely fair and impartial, they could honestly just eliminate it in the regular season altogether imo, although I hate ties.

[ET80]

20 minutes ago, TXsteeler said:

I think it's only fair because a defense is only half a football team, and there are several football teams that have very good offenses and very bad defenses

Isn't this an indictment on the FO/coaching staff? Why should we give these teams a pass because they focused so much on offense and didn't do their homework on defense?

26 minutes ago, TXsteeler said:

And in the current overtime format, when a team like that loses the coinflip to a team with a good offense, they are very likely to just lose the game based on that coinflip.

But KC DID do a good job on first and second down - the Pats offense is really good, and part of that is because they rarely find themselves in 3rd and long situations. In that respect, KC did a very good job. But that's only 2/3rds of the game, that 3rd down is the money down where you've got to make the play. 

Let's also remember that this KC defense forced a turnover on downs, and picked off Tom Brady to force the tie to begin with, so they proved out that they COULD do it. They just DIDN'T do it in the end. 

29 minutes ago, TXsteeler said:

The purpose of OT is simply to end the game without letting it go on forever, it's format should be completely fair and impartial, they could honestly just eliminate it in the regular season altogether imo, although I hate ties.

I would argue that it is impartial - the coin toss could go either way. It so happened that it didn't.

Now, real talk - if it had been the other way and it was Mahomes and the Chiefs that drove down the field and scored the TD, do you think people would be complaining that Tom Brady didn't get a fair shot?

I've been here long enough to answer that with an emphatic NO. Part of this is due to Patriots fatigue - and I GET that. But, I'm not going to kowtow to say "the rules need to be changed" simply because Brady and crew came out on top.

[TXsteeler]

Just now, ET80 said:

I would argue that it is impartial - the coin toss could go either way.

You're looking at it wrong. Impartial doesn't mean going either way, it means NOT going either way.

 

2 minutes ago, ET80 said:

Now, real talk - if it had been the other way and it was Mahomes and the Chiefs that drove down the field and scored the TD, do you think people would be complaining that Tom Brady didn't get a fair shot?

Of course they wouldn't.

But the rules shouldn't be changed because one QB or team did or didn't get a chance, the rules should be changed because the rule is bad every single time.