Posted on 02/27/2025 8:52:11 AM PST by Red Badger
INDIANAPOLIS -- The NFL is considering changing overtime rules in the regular season to decrease the advantage for teams that win the coin toss.
"It's time to rethink the overtime rule," league executive Troy Vincent said Wednesday at the NFL scouting combine.
Vincent said the competition committee agrees overtime rules need to be addressed. Receiving the ball first has become more of an advantage than pre-2011 when overtime was a sudden-death period. Receiving teams won 56.8% of games in overtime from 2017 to 2024, up from 55.4% from 2001 to 2011.
Current rules give both teams an opportunity to possess the ball in overtime unless a touchdown is scored on the first possession.
The rules are different in the playoffs. Both teams get a chance to have a possession even if the offense scores a touchdown on the opening drive. That postseason change came after the Buffalo Bills lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in a divisional round game in January 2022.
Making the overtime rules the same in the regular season is a possible solution, along with extending the period to 15 minutes.
Among other changes, the NFL plans to use its virtual measuring system to determine first downs in 2025. This wouldn't eliminate the officials who manually spot the ball and use chains to mark the line to gain. The optimal tracking system notifies officiating instantly if a first down was gained after the ball is spotted by hand.
"We used this in the background last season," said Kimberly Fields, the NFL's senior vice president of football operations. "The goal for 2025 is to continue to train our techs, who are the ones who will be utilizing the technology, finalizing all of our officiating processes and procedures around virtual measurements and testing the graphics for the broadcast and in-stadium, so fans in the stadium and fans watching on television can see what we're doing. The chain crew will still be there as backup."
The competition committee also will review expansion of the replay assist to include more fouls, but Vincent said "there was no appetite" from the committee to use video replay to throw a flag.
A team could still propose a rule change to do that. For now, if officials miss an obvious penalty such as a face mask, replay assist can't throw a flag.
Replay assist was used in 2024 to pick up flags thrown for roughing the passer (contact with head/neck), unnecessary roughness (runner out of bounds), intentional grounding and ineligible player downfield.
Expansion under consideration for 2025 would include roughing the passer (hit below the knee), unnecessary roughness (defenseless receiver/player), face mask (contact of hand with face mask), tripping, illegal crackback block and horse-collar tackle, among others.
Vincent said the league wanted to find a way to bring back onside kicks while also installing a permanent kickoff rule after a one-year trial with what was called the dynamic kickoff.
The trial made kickoffs more exciting with higher rate of returns. Vincent said he anticipated the spot of the touchback on kickoffs being moved from the 30- to the 35-yard line.
But the changes affected the onside kick. Teams were 3 for 50, the lowest recovery rate since 2001.
"Universal consensus that we know we need to do something with this play," Vincent said.
He added there wasn't much conversation around a fourth-and-long option to keep possession, though those discussions could occur next month.
The tush push play mastered by the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles has been a hot topic this week because the Green Bay Packers proposed banning it. Some opponents have argued the play is dangerous, but Vincent said the league found no injuries on the play in 2024.
That would be interesting and would set up a number of new strategies and coaching challenges.
OT needs to be fixed.
Regular season - just play football for 15 minutes - if it’s tied - it’s a tie.
Post season - keep playing 15 minute quarters till somebody wins
The Hula Bowl back in the day, had a rule that if you were trailing in the fourth quarter after you scored a TD, you’d get the ball back.
I suggest using the position of the ball at the end of the game to determine which team gets the ball in the over time. Which ever team’s goal the ball is closest to would receive in overtime. The coin toss would only be used if the ball is on the 50 yard line at the end of the game.
Past time. The college overtime rules are both fair and fun.
Just play a full quarter like it’s another 4th quarter (complete with 2 minute warning). If still tied, just leave it a tie. It’s not difficult, but these leagues insist on implementing Mickey Mouse rules.
That’s another good one!
I’m pro-ties. I know American sports tends to think of them as anti-climactic. But I don’t have a problem with them. And especially with a short schedule like football. More ties means more possible ends of the season, fewer “standings” ties, and less reliance on goofy breakers. Steal straight from English Football, 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, that sets your base standings.
Especially in college football, you should not get full credit for an overtime win. Usually the pollsters don’t take the number of times a team went to OT into consideration.
That's a good one too. I can imagine how much offense there would be in the last part of a close game.
There were 16 overtime games in 2024. That means 9 times the receiving team won, and 7 times the other team won. In such a small sample, that is parity.
I really hate college OT, same reason I hate shootouts in hockey and soccer. You’re making a fake version of the game to try to get a result. That’s a terrible way to decide things. Might as well go to a different sport entirely. “The football game ended in a tie, so now the teams are pitching quarters to determine the winner.”
Visitors start with, "I'll take the ball at the 50." Then the home team can go with "I'll take the ball at our own 40." The the visitors say, I will take the ball our own 39." And keep going, say down to the 20 or so, and finally a coach says, "Go ahead, take the ball."
Then play it like regular football, and the first team to score wins. No advantage for going last like college, no advantage for going first like NFL. Somebody wants the ball, somebody wants to go on defense. Game on, let's go.
I agree, screw overtime. When I was a kid I watched the Lions lose in sudden-death, the 7th period of the longest game. That part sucked. But there’s zero reason to have overtime in regular season games, ties are fine. They happen anyway.
I mean when did we decide ties are a bad thing?
NFL:
QUIT TWEAKING THIS.
YOU ARE NOT PLAYING PEE—WEE FOOTBALL
An electrical 1” mesh (for water drainage) covering the entire field would be expensive. Maybe on both sidelines (and one strip down the middle) to which the ball’s sensor could communicate.
This raises the question of sensor placement on the ball, which may not have crossed the line to gain while parts of the ball that DID cross the line might not be recognized. It seems 2 sensors front & back, plus 4 around the perimeter quadrants still wouldn’t guarantee
It’s all about gambling revenue for thr elites..
Instead of time limits on the game, each “quarter” should have 3 possessions each. If there is a tie at the end of the game, another quarter of 3 possessions each. This continues until the game is won.
Time should not ever be a factor when determining who the winner is.
Yeah, it’s a very American attitude. Outside of here OT and tie breaking pretty much only shows up for some sort of playoff structure, when you really do have to have a winner. Not sure why we got so hooked on it, but we definitely have the mentality that ties are bad.
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