RaychelSnr's Blog
You've just played 60 minutes of hard nosed-tough football and yet you and your opponent have decided nothing.
The game is tied.
And now, it's time for overtime so it's time to switch sports because you are no longer playing football.
For some reason, no one has a clue about how to actually solve a football game that finds itself tied after regulation ends. Every other sport? They're pretty well set on how to do it properly.
Baseball and Soccer just keep playing until a winner is found. Ditto for the NHL and NBA who have well thought out overtime rules.
To the NFL's credit -- the overtime in football got a lot better this offseason when the playoff overtime rule was adjusted to include the entire regular season.
Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, the NFL overtime rule still needs some serious work. It is still composed at least halfway of how lucky you are in the coin toss. College football's overtime is more competitive, but it doesn't actually mirror the game that was just played for 60 minutes but rather an absurd cross of baseball and football.
So what is the solution?
At the very least, college football should adopt an overtime like the NFL's to actually have, you know...kickoffs and punts and stuff in overtime.
But I think the NFL's overtime could do with some changing as well.
I personally would rather see NFL teams play a full half quarter (we'll give em 8 minutes just to be fair) and instead of a coin flip deciding who gets the ball first, give the ball to the team which gained the most total yards. Games should be earned on the field, not decided by a lucky break on winning a coin toss.
Basically, play the eight minutes out and whoever is ahead at the end of the 8 minute period is the winner -- unless of course the game is tied again. In the regular season, this is a tie. Problem solved.
In the post-season, if the game is still tied after your overtime period only then can you go to a sudden death format to decide the fate of the football universe.
College Football's overtime is the worst in all of sports, because it takes away the essence of the game and instead just plops teams on the right side of the 50 and tells them to go score. At the very least, with college football being nearly impossible to change (see: the 120 year playoff fight), the overtime possessions should at least start where you have to earn a first down or two to actually get in field goal range.
So start college teams back at the 50 at least, although I'd personally rather have college football mirror pro in the suggestion I listed above -- but improvement is needed either way.
Without a doubt, it's amazing to me how jacked up football overtimes are compared to the rest of sports which seem to take a rather straightforward approach to the extra period.
Are you happy with football overtimes as is? What would you change if you could?
# 17
Colonel Reb @ Jul 20
What people aren't thinking about is football has some problems in how its played which makes it very difficult to really get a good OT.
-Football is extremely physical compared to other sports. Playing on longer opens up to more injuries, especially since most players are already worn out.
-Other sports work with short OTs because ball possessions are relatively short. In basketball, you have 35/30/24 seconds to get a shot off, depending on the level of play. In baseball, unless a team really goes on a hitting spree, 3 outs doesn't usually last that long. In football, ball control teams could effectively hold on to the ball the entire 8 minutes of your proposed OT. There have been football drives which have lasted 10 minutes before. So you still may not see one team get the ball.
The first thing I mentioned suggests football should have a short OT to combat injuries. The second suggests football needs a long one to combat teams holding the ball forever. It's hard to reconcile those two aspects. Football games already last long enough anyway. I'm not a fan of ties though.
-Football is extremely physical compared to other sports. Playing on longer opens up to more injuries, especially since most players are already worn out.
-Other sports work with short OTs because ball possessions are relatively short. In basketball, you have 35/30/24 seconds to get a shot off, depending on the level of play. In baseball, unless a team really goes on a hitting spree, 3 outs doesn't usually last that long. In football, ball control teams could effectively hold on to the ball the entire 8 minutes of your proposed OT. There have been football drives which have lasted 10 minutes before. So you still may not see one team get the ball.
The first thing I mentioned suggests football should have a short OT to combat injuries. The second suggests football needs a long one to combat teams holding the ball forever. It's hard to reconcile those two aspects. Football games already last long enough anyway. I'm not a fan of ties though.
RaychelSnr
57
4,846 Forum Posts
490 Blog Entries
1 News/Blog Comments
10 Reader Score Votes
154 Friends
66 Chalkboard Messages
6 Screenshots
3 Videos
2,520,395 Arena Visits
RaychelSnr's Blog Categories
RaychelSnr's Xbox 360 Gamercard
RaychelSnr's PSN Gamercard
' +
More
RaychelSnr's Friends
Recent Visitors
The last 10 visitor(s) to this Arena were:
RaychelSnr's Arena has had 2,520,395 visits
- Albrillo
- beedubyuh
- Icetime2121
- kon56la
- Lewisf33
- OldHossRadbourn
- Ralnakor
- ryderino
- sl4yer94
- studbucket
RaychelSnr's Arena has had 2,520,395 visits
Working...
I like the idea of extra periods, heck make em 15 minute. Go for the gusto!
Give each period a two minute warning, just like the end of regulation. If it's still tied, you play on. Of course the TV Networks would never go for this.
And do a coin toss at the beginning of the first period, and third period. Alternate endzones.
A shorter safer method would be with 10 minute periods. 8 minutes is too short. One team can eat up 8 minutes fairly easily. Give each team 3 timeouts for each two periods.
Maybe use a 30 second playclock during overtimes. Or let the clock keep moving.