Patrick Mahomes on overtime: “It’s just how the coin tosses”

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Patrick Mahomes led his team to overtime in the AFC Championship Game, but that was as far as he could go.

After the Patriots won the coin toss, they marched down the field and scored the game-winning touchdown. Mahomes never got on the field in overtime, instead watching Tom Brady engineer a game-winning drive.

“It’s just how the coin tosses, I guess you’d say,” Mahomes said after the game. “It’s a thing where he had a great drive. He had a lot of third-down conversions. In big moments, guys made big catches for him. It’s a thing where all you can do is support your teammates, trust your teammates, and when you get your opportunity, go out there and try to make plays.”

Mahomes, however, didn’t get his opportunity and didn’t get to go out there and make plays. This game may lead to increased scrutiny on the NFL’s overtime, and calls for rules that make the coin toss less significant.

27 responses to “Patrick Mahomes on overtime: “It’s just how the coin tosses”

  1. I’d really like college rules for OT. It feels like Mahomes really deserved a shot at the win! Great game either way.

  2. The rule doesn’t bother me, though I admit I’m a Pats fan. But I think there’s two parts to it — offense and defense. It’s not just that the offense marched down the field and scored a TD. It’s also that the defense allowed it to happen. Great game, and the Chiefs have noting to be ashamed about.

  3. There is nothing wrong with the current overtime rules.

    All the Chiefs had to do was stop even ONE of New England’s third down conversions.

    They had their chance, they couldn’t.

    And we see once again why Brady is the Greatest of all Time.

  4. No, no, no! College overtime is a terrible gimmick. There is nothing wrong with NFL overtime as it is. This is not kindergarten, and not everyone deserves a chance to play with the ball.

  5. I realize they keep trying to legislate defense out of the game, but for now, it is hanging by a thread and OT is it’s one time to shine. Want the ball in OT? Play that 3rd of the game and get a stop so you can score. Same reason I always liked make-it-take-it in bball…play the whole game!

  6. It’s been adjusted already making it have to be a TD instead of a FG. Coin toss doesn’t lose the game, letting up a 75yd drive, 4 third down conversions, etc loses the game. Leave it how it is.

    The biggest problem with the rule is that the NFL didnt get to showcase its brightest star winning at home, boo boo. Win the game in regulation then.

    Lwts concentrate on real Changes that should occur like being able to challenge defensive pass interference calls.

  7. Each team in OT should have at least one possession. I don’t like the rule that U win coin toss and score a TD it is over. Give the other team an equal opportunity to match the score at least one possession. Just my view.

  8. Overtime rules are fine now. If you want to advance to the super bowl, you need to have a semblance of a defense that can at least hold the other team to a field goal in the biggest of drives. It’s 75 yards. It’s not like it’s a gimme or something.

    While taking the ball first means you win with a touchdown, there is some advantage to the knowledge that comes with the ball second. You know what the other team scored on their drive already and know if you can just go for as many fourth downs as you need, if you can just kick a field goal for the win, or a touchdown to win. Not worth the chance of just a TD to win straight up, but it’s still a virtue nonetheless.

    If you tried to change it and both teams scored a touchdown, and then the first team gets the ball again and wins the game with a score, it literally would be exactly the same as now and people would complain how unfair it is that one team gets more possessions than the other. Someone has to have the last possession. If you add a guaranteed possession for the second team, teams could also just defer so that they would have that big advantage of knowing what they have to score to match the opponent. If you’re the first team, far harder to go for a fourth down from your own twenty, whereas the second team knows if they have to.

    There will never be truly fair overtime rules. The change to needing a touchdown instead of just a field goal is far more fair, but even if you give each team a possession one is going to have a huge bonus. College overtime isn’t bad, but it is a facade. Instead of actual football drives, like the Patriots put together today for the championship, they have arcade-y short yardage situations, that often just result in each team scoring over and over until they’re forced to go for two until one of them fails. While the coin toss is hard when you don’t win it, I don’t want to see the game decided on such an arbitrary situation as “who can score the most two point conversions?” I’d rather see it decided by the offense converting third and tens, or failing. During a championship drive, players had to step up, and they did.

  9. If you change the OT rules to allow both teams to have a possession even if the first team scores a TD, you make defense less significant.

    Defense is still a part of the game. Stop the other team.

  10. All the Chiefs had to do was stop them, they couldn’t…..Could a timeout have helped a tired defense and stopped momentum?, we’ll never know.

  11. It seems to me the only time we talk about the OT rules is when a team wins that most didn’t want to win. KC had their chances and NE came up big, especially Edelman and Gronk.

    It was a great game and a great ending.

    Go Pats!

  12. College rules of OT are not football. Keep that trash out of the big time.

    Game ends on a TD. It shouldn’t end on a FG and that was fixed. Nothing wrong with how it works now at all.

  13. Stop giving the defense a free pass, they get paid to play, too. If you want the ball in OT but lose the coin toss, stop your opponent from scoring or take the ball away. But everyone needs to stop this incessant whining about OT rules, you apparently won’t be happy until they award the win to the loser of the coin toss.

  14. The instant the Patriots won the OT coin toss, I knew we’d hear all the same wailing and gnashing of teeth over the OT rules that we heard after the Patriots’ OT win over the Falcons in the Super Bowl. Isn’t it handy that writers and posters can just dust off their stuff from back then?

    If the Chiefs had won the coin toss and Mahomes marched the team down for a TD, would anybody be questioning the OT rules? I think we know the answer to that.

  15. There is nothing wrong with the overtime rules. They already changed it to make it a bit more fair. Before all you needed was a decent drive and a FG and it was over.

    If your defense can’t stop the other team from scoring a TD then you deserve to lose.

  16. You have to play defense too. I like that you can no longer drive the ball 40 yards and kick a FG on the first possession in OT, because that really felt like a coin toss determining the outcome. However, if you can sustain a drive and score a TD, then you’ve earned the win. Reid should have used one of his three time outs and given his defense a breather on the goal line. Who knows? Maybe they hold the Pats to a FG and Mahomes gets another shot.

  17. The Chiefs defense gave up 2 TD drives in their own house with a really loud crowd to close the game out with a bunch of 3rd down conversions made along the way. Let that sink in.

    Zero sympathy for how they lost.

  18. I did not want to witness another Brady bowl but here we go! KC your defense let you down major!! Even in OT. Brady had his way almost the entire game man…DEFENSE!!!

  19. “Defense wins championships”

    The team that won this game allowed 31 points in 30 minutes and didn’t have to play a single down of defense in overtime.

  20. Well, instead of a coin toss, why not do something like, the team who’s gained the most yards in the game so far gets the ball, or some other stat where they would “earn” the right to get the ball first instead of the pure chance of a coin toss.

  21. Please the current rules are fine as is. People are complaining because the Pats won. Has the Chiefs won no one would be saying about OT rules.

  22. What happened to both teams having the opportunity to possess the ball in OT? Changed to sudden death in the playoffs? Nobody deserves to win on a coin toss.

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