Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports has some more details regarding the potential changes to the NFL overtime procedures. (Thus the title to this blurb.)
Word of the possible tweaks comes from the Thursday meeting between the Competition Committee and players to discuss possible rule changes. And Seahawks receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh, whose past propensity for using his vocal cords has convinced us that he thinks “discretion” is new brand of Calvin Klein cologne, has gone on the record with Cole regarding the content of the meeting, which the veteran pass-catcher attended.
“It’s just something the league is looking at to make sure the playoffs go as good as possible,” Houshmandzadeh said. “I don’t think it’s going to get passed, but they’re thinking about it.”
Others think it’s coming. But it makes plenty of sense for the league to be talking to the union, given that any change to the rules would expose players to more snaps, and thus more chances to suffer injury.
As Cole explains it, the somewhat convoluted tweak to the sudden-victory protocol would not be quite as simple as “first one to six.” If, as Cole explains, the first team to get the ball fails to score and the other team gets only a field goal, the game would end.
But the team kicking off wouldn’t be guaranteed a possession; if the receiving team scores a touchdown, the game would be over.
Thus, we still prefer a system that gives each team one possession regardless of whether the first team scores a touchdown, and that then converts the format to sudden-victory if the game is tied after each team has had a crack at scoring.
Some have complained that this would give an unfair advantage to the team that kicks off, since that team would essentially have four cracks to gain ten yards if the receiving team scores. We’re not sure that we agree with this -- and we think that any benefit the kicking team derives would be balanced out by the fact that the team that receives the kickoff to start overtime would get the ball again once the game shifts back to the current first-to-score-wins-it format.
Bottom line? The NFL looks to be working its way into the right church. We simply now need to guide the powers-that-be to the correct pew.