Time To Give Overtime The Ol' College Try

After the biggest, strongest and fastest men in the world collide for 60 minutes and end up tied, the fate of the game is decided by the thumb of some scrawny referee.

Well, that’s just not fair.

Right now, the winner of a coin toss at the beginning of overtime in an NFL game decides which team receives the ball, and the first team to score wins. This system has an inherent flaw by not ensuring both teams have an offensive series.

Think about it: if two teams battle to a tie in regulation, their performances in the game are equal. Thus they should be given equal chance to score.

Since 1994 (not including this season), almost 60 percent of teams who won the coin toss won the game, with 38.7 percent winning on the first possession.

Last year, a record 25 games went into overtime, and 11 games were won by the team who received the opening kick off. A whopping 10 games were decided on the first possession.

Since the inception of sudden death overtime in 1974, the winner has decided to kick off only nine times out of 350 regular season overtime games. Only four of those nine teams won on the gamble that the other team would not score on its first possession.

The coin toss should simply determine who gets the ball first, not who wins the game.

In 1998, in perhaps the greatest coin toss controversy in football history, Pittsburgh and Detroit went into overtime in the Thanksgiving game. Jerome Bettis called “tails” for the Steelers, but for some reason referee Phil Luckett heard “heads.”

Bettis protested vehemently after Luckett flipped heads and awarded the Lions the ball. Even the television mikes picked up Bettis’ call. But the Lions got the ball and quickly marched down the field to gain the victory on the only possession in overtime.

If Pittsburgh had the chance to get the ball back, the botched toss wouldn’t have been as big a deal. But with the system the way it is, the Lions got the win and the Steelers got cheated.

Proponents of sudden death cite the excitement that it generates by forcing coaches to make more risky decisions. But that same excitement can be recreated even if both teams are guaranteed to have the ball at least once. Look at the college football system of giving both teams the ball on the 25, which makes for exciting finishes even while guaranteeing one touch each.

If both NFL teams were assured one possession, the winner of the coin toss would have a real choice to make: does the team kick off first in order to know whether it needs a field goal or a touchdown to win, or does the team receive in hopes of putting pressure on its opponent by scoring first? Coaches would still take chances because they’d want to go up by a touchdown instead of just a field goal.

Those against changing overtime also say that eliminating sudden death would make games run too long and end in more ties. Well, make overtime sudden death if both teams are tied after one possession.

This year, eight games have already gone into overtime. Two were decided on the first possession of the team that won the coin toss. San Francisco and Indianapolis, the two teams that lost without even touching the football, would have killed for a chance to score.

The other six games had plenty of drama, with two missed field goals, 51-yard and 82-yard touchdown passes and an average of just three possessions in the fifth quarter. No ties, no inordinately long games. It’s almost like they showed what would happen if the league adopted the fairer overtime system.

Neither team has reason to complain when both get the ball—that is, as long as the referee has gotten his hearing checked.

—Staff writer Brenda E. Lee can be reached at belee@fas.harvard.edu.