By Rick Anderson
For the Grays Harbor News Group
The more you think about it, the stranger it seems that only one of the previous 52 Super Bowls ended in overtime.
That’s probably just as well, since the debate over National Football League overtime rules tends to overshadow the actual game.
In the 2017 Super Bowl (technically Super Bowl LI), the New England Patriots won the overtime coin flip and scored on their opening possession for a 31-28 victory over the Atlanta Falcons.
History repeated itself in the recent American Football Conference championship game won by New England over Kansas City, 37-31. After the high-powered Chiefs’ offense was denied even one OT possession, a Kansas City writer (in a column reprinted in The Daily World) proclaimed pro football’s overtime format “arbitrary and unfair.”
For the record, the NFC title game also went into OT before the Los Angeles Rams outlasted the New Orleans Saints. But both teams had the ball during overtime of that game and the major controversy revolved around a horrendous non-call of pass interference that probably denied New Orleans the victory in regulation.
Overtime in the NFL used to be true sudden death, meaning that a team that won the coin toss could win a playoff game through a pass interference penalty that advanced it into field-goal range. That was indeed arbitrary and unfair.
Revised a few years ago, the current regulation is at least a slight improvement. It stipulates that, with one exception, each team will receive one overtime possession.
If the first team to get the ball scores a touchdown, however, the game is over. If it only kicks a field goal, its opponent will receive one possession to tie or win. The winner of the overtime coin flip still has a huge advantage.
It’s doubtful if guaranteeing the opponent one possession would have changed the outcome of either New England game in question.
Reeling after squandering a 28-3 lead in the second half of Super Bowl LI, the Falcons were essentially running on fumes by the time the Patriots scored the game-ending touchdown.
The Chiefs had a slightly better chance of turning the tables against New England a couple of weekends ago, but only if KC coach Andy Reid possessed the foresight to go for a 2-point conversion and an outright victory after scoring a retaliatory touchdown. The way Tom Brady and the Patriots were shredding Kansas City’s suspect defense, merely prolonging overtime wasn’t going to do the Chiefs much good.
The current overtime format might be flawed, but none of the most popular suggested alternatives represent much of an improvement.
The Kansas Tiebreaker format utilized in college and high school football guarantees equal possessions but starts with both teams already in scoring territory. That frequently devolves into an endless battle of the placekickers.
One pundit recently suggested that, at least in playoff games, a full 15-minute quarter be imposed for overtime.
That sounds fair but fails to address the question of what happens if that quarter also winds up deadlocked. It seems unreasonable — not to mention unsafe — to expect players to go through two or three additional quarters.
Since it rewards aggressiveness in the red zone, I don’t have a problem with the current overtime format. My personal NFL wish list would include two rule changes unrelated to OT — de-icing the kicker and reducing the number of automatic first downs.
When a placekicker is lining up for a game-tying or winning field goal, it has become standard procedure for the opposing coach to call a last-second timeout to ice him.
Evidently, coaches are always granted the benefit of the doubt on the timing of these calls. Although there have been numerous occasions when whistles have stopped play after the ball has been snapped, I can’t recall the officials ever ruling that time was called too late.
Under my proposal, a kicker could still be iced but only if time was called before the center touched the ball. That would eliminate the guesswork on the stoppage of play.
The other rule change would be more radical.
Imagine the Seattle Seahawks have forced the L.A. Rams into a third-and-15 situation but are called for defensive holding or illegal contact on a third-down incomplete pass. Under current rules, that not only results in a 5-yard penalty but an automatic first down as well.
That’s too excessive a punishment for a 5-yard penalty — particularly since illegal contact in particular conceivably could be called on nearly every pass play. Allowing the Rams a do-over on third-and-10 is sufficient. Automatic first downs should be reserved for major defensive infractions such as personal fouls or pass interference.
The enforcement of defensive holding or illegal contact fouls has never been questioned, but I’ve often wondered why. Granting the offense an entire new set of downs in such situations seems, well, arbitrary and unfair.
