Month: January 2008

RANT! Professional football must change their overtime system

RANT! Professional football must change their overtime system

I write this just a few days after the NFC championship game for the 2007 season. In this game, Green Bay hosted a frigid game between their beloved Packers and the New York Giants. The game was well played by both teams and ended in a tie at 20.

As dictated by the rules, the teams then met to flip the coin again and the Packers won the toss. Within the NFL, overtimes are decided by the first team to score any kind of point. The typical strategy is to get close enough for field goal and end the OT quickly. This definitely favors the team that wins the OT toss!

As fate would have it, the Packers turned over the ball and the Giants won the game with their own field goal. While this particular instance provided both teams an opportunity to have the ball, the rules are not that fair.

Sudden death is not an effective way to settle an important football game. Rather it would be far more fair to have rules that are similar to college football and most high school leagues. The ball should be placed at a particular yardage marker (I suggest the 50 yard line) and then each team is given the opportunity to score. They should be allowed to earn first downs and they should be forced to attempt 2 point conversions after a touchdown. Each team should have ball an equal number of times to respond to the other team’s scores.

Regardless of which official rules the league would adopt, the current rules are not designed to achieve a fair outcome.

HEY NFL, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER AND DEVELOP RULES THAT ARE FAIR!

Other opinions that you might want to check out:
From the Back of the Freezer
We MUST Change The NFL Overtime System, And Do It ASAP

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.

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