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.
Bring back ties. If you don’t win in regulation, you don’t deserve full credit for winning in overtime.
What’s wrong with the college football OT rules?
Much better than the NFL OT rules.
Fix the stupid kick-off rules first.
“The chain crew will still be there as backup”
LOL...yeah, that chain crew will still be there just to make people think it is the “old football.”
If they keep overtime, I suggest going to a points system.
3 points for winning in regulation
2 points for winning in overtime
1 point for losing in overtime
0 points for losing in regulation
IIRC, several years back, a German company had invented a way to track the football down to less than an inch.
But it involved a buried grid under the turf and a small gizmo inside the football.
The NFL turned it down as too expensive...............
“He added there wasn’t much conversation around a fourth-and-long option to keep possession, though those discussions could occur next month.”
Possibility: Option to keep possession if they make a 20+ yard play from a designated yard line instead of kicking off after score.
I always thought the overtime rule as is, is ok.
Because assuming the first team that gets the ball deep in their territory, if they fail to get a first down then has to kick the ball away, most likely the other team only has to be maybe 20-30 yards to kick the winning FG, whereas the team that got the ball first has to score a touchdown to win. So it seems like a fair tradeoff.
Why not just give the receiving team the option of taking the ball on the 20 yard line and no kickoff................
“Why not just give the receiving team the option of taking the ball on the 20 yard line and no kickoff................”
That would defeat the whole purpose.
“I always thought the overtime rule as is, is ok.”
Statistics showed that it was not ok.
But the NFL goal is to reduce injuries, and with no kickoff-runback there would be none.
They did a study back about 10 years ago that showed the worst time for injuries was during the runback.........
How about rethinking all the flags? It's unwatchable.
You are off topic.
Because defenses today suck.
Agreed...they removed all drama, surprise and mystery from the onsides kick because of this.
I thought about making it so that, if you score a TD late, in lieu of the onsides kick, you could go for a 2-point conversion from the 5-yard line instead of the 2-yard line, or have the option of kicking a PAT from 50 yards, so that if you convert, you automatically get the ball back.
I’m always off topic!....................
So the NFL screwed up the overtime period, now proposes to fix it.
Here’s an idea. 15 minute MAX overtime. Both teams have a shot at the ball regardless if the receiving team scores a touchdown on their first possession.
Example: Team A receives and scores a touchdown. Kickoff to Team B who scores a touchdown. Kickoff to Team A who is forced to punt, Team B kicks a field goal, game over. Each team had 2 possessions so they’re even.
Onside kick rules: Throw these stupid rules out and go back to the old way of doing things. As it is, they want the old percentages back without going back to the old rules.
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