Though we’ll continue to bang the drum that the overtime rule needs to be changed until the vote is taken on Wednesday -- and, if it fails, beyond -- Peter King of SI.com believes that the proposed alteration to sudden death for the postseason only won’t pass during the 2010 league meetings.
As one NFC G.M. told King on Sunday night: “Is there a poll anywhere with fans demanding a new format for overtime? Where’s the demand coming from? I don’t hear it from fans or from players.’'
One source of the demand is King himself, who has been calling for change for a while now. We’ve also been clamoring for a new rule, and not just in the wake of the NFC title game. I first made the case after the Chargers beat the Colts on a first-drive touchdown in the 2008 wild-card round. Less than a month later, it appeared that the worst-case scenario was coming as the Steelers drove toward the end zone against the Cardinals, trailing by three with time running out in the fourth quarter.
After the Saints advanced to Super Bowl XLIV after receiving the ball to start overtime and scoring a field goal, our official rooting interest for the title game became a wish that one team would win on the first drive of overtime. But for Tracy Porter sitting on a route and/or Reggie Wayne failing to get in front of him, it may have happened.
It’s the only way the rule ever will change. Believe me, if it ever happens in a Super Bowl, the rule will change in the wake of what will be the biggest morning-after fog since a tie in baseball’s Midsummer Classic made Bud Selig look like a product marketed by Summer’s Eve.
So why not get it right before the wrong outcome occurs? Though we realize that NFL owners are a conservative bunch (we don’t mean that in the political sense), what’s riskier than the biggest event of the year being undermined by millions of casual fans believing that the final outcome of the game was anything other than fair and just?
And while King lays out four specific reasons supporting his belief that the rules won’t change, there’s one big reason to push it through. The league supposedly has entrusted to the Competition Committee the authority to identify rules that require change, to study the alternatives, and to identify a solution. If the full ownership isn’t willing to defer to the work of the very body charged with determining what’s best for the game, why even have a Competition Committee?