Wednesday, March 24, 2010

WHY NOT BRING BACK THE XFL'S SCRAMBLE FOR THE BALL? The NFL owners have approved new rules for resolving playoff overtime games, and other than the fact that it's for playoff games only right now it's a step in the right direction:
  • If the team receiving the kickoff scores a touchdown, game over. If the defense scores a safety on this series, game over and they win.
  • If the team receiving the kickoff scores a field goal, then the other team has a chance to receive the ball. If they score a touchdown, they win; if they score a field goal the game proceeds to sudden death next-score-wins; if they don't score at all, game over.
  • And if the team receiving the kickoff doesn't score at all, then the other team wins the game if they score even a field goal on their subsequent possession.
I still feel like first-team-to-six is the easiest rule to implement, but I can live with this.

14 comments:

  1. ChinMusic10:55 AM

    NFL teams play it safe.  Look at the reaction to the Patriots 4th-and-2 decision last year (and how things would have gone had the Saints not gotten the ball back at the end of the first half of the superbowl after failing on 4th and goal from the 1).  So, here is what this rule will do:  Team winning the toss takes the ball, kicks field goal.  Other team gets to 4th down, kicks field goal.  Team winning the toss gets ball back on kickoff and game proceeds as overtime always has.  Sure, the rule change provides ways OT could end sooner, say if the team winning the toss gets on a good run and scores a TD.  But, no coach is going to risk ending his season in an overtime playoff game by going for it on 4th down rather than kicking a FG.  Invariably they will kick the FG and live to fight another series.  The simple way to fix overtime is to allow regular season games to end in ties at the end of regulation and to impose a series of 10:00 overtimes in the playoffs.   

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  2. isaac_spaceman1:20 PM

    How about just playing another 15-minute quarter?  It would punish teams that play for the tie by exposing them to greater injury risk and fatigue.  And advertisers would like it.

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  3. isaac_spaceman1:23 PM

    Sorry, didn't read ChinMusic's comment, which has the same kind of idea in the playoffs but not the regular season.  The problem with a 10:00 overtime is that it's not long enough -- it would reward grind-it-out strategies in OT to shrink the other team's possession time.  I'd be inclined to say 15:00, but the clock runs even on an incomplete pass and there are no team TOs -- only officials' TOs (for commercials). 

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  4. bad dad2:10 PM

    One full period with no sudden death, followed by college overtime if still (or re-)tied?

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  5. isaac_spaceman2:13 PM

    You know, I always thought the best tiebreaker in hockey would be to play a series of shortened periods, with each team losing a player during each successive scoreless period.  Who wouldn't watch an OT period where it's 3-on-3 or 2-on-2? 

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  6. ChinMusic2:14 PM

    The reason I limited it to the playoffs is that I have read that there is concern that longer overtimes would lead to more plays on which players could get hurt.  I don't think the league would go for a full extra period in all regular season games that are tied at the end of regulation.  Playoffs are different and games should be decided under regular rules not some complicated back-yard football rules.  I don't know if there would be a material difference between the 10 minute quarter or a 15 minute running quarter, but I believe that the current regular season overtime period is only 5 minutes, so either time period would expand OT significantly.  With 10 minutes, my thought was that if a team won the coin toss, drove with the ball for 10 minutes and then scored to win the game at the end of overtime, you would have a hard time saying that the team giving up such a drive didn't deserve to lose.  Even a six minute drive that leads to a field goal is pretty substantial and gets away from the "3 first downs and a FG" problem the NFL faces now.  So, in most cases I would think 10 minutes would give each side a chance to win the game. The trouble comes if you get into a double- or triple-overtime and guys are playing the equivalent of a double-header. 

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  7. Joseph J. Finn2:28 PM

    So admittedly I haven't been paying that much attention to this (besides thinking the sudden death rule was inane) but was was wrong with simply adopting a one-possession-each rule and eliminating sudden death entirely?

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  8. bad dad2:59 PM

    I hate NHL regular season overtime. The one point for an overtime loss bastardizes the point totals such that teams would WANT to tie and each get their point, then play this little minigame to pick up another point. Get rid of overtime all together and switch to soccer standings with three points for the win and one point for the tie. Then a tie isn't half a win with a chance for a full win, it's 2/3s of a loss.

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  9. Anonymous4:30 PM

    It kills me that the only reason this was done was because of Brett Favre's whiny ass.

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  10. isaac_spaceman5:28 PM

    That's essentially what the new rule is.  The criticism of it is that it still favors the winner of the coin flip too much.  The winner of the flip chooses to defer possession so that it knows, when it has the ball, how many points it needs to win or tie. 

    Another hypothetical criticism:  this might lead to more ties than wins.  If it's true that coaches (other than Belicheck and Payton) are more loss-averse than risk-averse, then a coach down by three on the second possession of OT facing a fourth-and-two will probably kick the FG rather than trying to extend the drive. 

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  11. If game deciding field goals in OT are a problem, then eliminate field goals altogether. No kicks with a holder, period. The drop kick rule is still on the books, it would be a lot less of a gimme, and therefore a lot more exciting. Field goal kickers have gotten too reliable within 30 yards, alot of the drama is sucked out of games in the final minute and OT because of this. So either get rid of that aspect of the kicking game, or do something crazy like variable width goalposts that get narrower as a team gets closer to the goal line.

    The NCAA OT rules work well enough in college, the NFL should have just adopted those, though, instead of this odd hybrid that's only applicable during the playoffs.

    By the way the discussion about the new rules came about, seem as if the NFL wishes they could apply them retroactively to the NFC Championship game.

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  12. Mr. Cosmo9:58 AM

    Question:
    What happens if team onside-kicks in OT and recovers the ball?  Have they deprived the other team of its theoretical possession?  That is, if I am first to kick off, on-side kick, recover the ball, and kick a field goal, have I won?   Seems to me like this would be a decent way to game the system -- if you on-side kick and recover, you can win the game without the other side ever getting the ball.  If you don't recover, then unless you give up a TD, you get last ups.

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  13. Mr. Cosmo12:25 PM

    I did a little more research, and this is covered by section (g) of the new rules.  Each side shall have an "opportunity to possess" the ball, and being the receiving team on a kick-off counts as said "opportunity".

    Similarly, if Team A gets first possession and punts, but Team B fumbles the punt and Team A recovers, Team B is deemed to have had its "opportunity", and the game would then continue as sudden death with Team A in possession. 

    On the other hand, if Team A fakes a punt and runs for a first down, Team B has not had its "opportunity".  On the other other hand, if Team A punts, Team B blocks the punt but never gets possession and Team A then recovers and runs for a first down, Team B has not had its opportunity, b/c a punt has to cross the line of scrimmage in order to count as an "opportunity to possess" by the defense.

    Good stuff.

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