As the league’s owners gather in Arizona to consider potential rule changes, one proposal that will soon be on the table would reduce overtime in the regular season for 15 minutes to 10.
Here’s some free advice for the owners (money-back guarantee): Don’t do it.
It definitely will result in more ties, and that’s the last thing fans want. Yes, it’s important to reduce the total number of snaps, and a 10-minute overtime would do that. But an uptick in ties will be good for no one.
Fans (and coaches and players) want resolution. Investing more than 3.5 hours and ending up with an 0-0-1 on the regular-season record of two teams won’t provide it.
So here’s the proposal that the owners should adopt, in a nutshell: A two-point conversion contest.
One offense and defense goes to one end of the field, and the other offense and defense go to the other end of the field. A two-point conversion attempt occurs at each end of the field, three times per team, with either two points or zero points being scored. To keep things moving along, the snaps occur 25 seconds apart. (The officiating crew would be split, with four on one end of the field and four on the other end.)
If the game is tied after each team has three chances to score, the teams go back and forth, one chance each, until there’s no tie after both teams have had their chance to score.
It would be exciting, frenetic, compelling, and it would involve as few as six extra snaps. And we’ve yet to hear a good argument against it.