Modified sudden death rules for OT

It is no secret that we are very much opposed to the NFL's modified sudden death format. (Rather than repeat, see our rant from the 2010 season and our other posts.) Here are the overtime rules for all preseason, regular season, and postseason games: Modified sudden death only applies when the team

Triplette flubs recitation of OT rules

Jeff Triplette, meet Dante Hicks. Much like the downtrodden cashier from Clerks, Triplette was not even supposed to be here this Sunday. Triplette was heading Scott Green's crew while the rest of Triplette's crew had the holiday weekend off. So when overtime began in San Diego between the Broncos and Chargers,

Overtime shifts to ‘modified sudden death’

It was a solution looking for a problem. In 1941, the NFL adopted the sudden-death overtime into the rulebook, initially to break ties only in divisional playoff games (at that time divisional playoffs were similar to baseball's one-game playoff). It was expanded to include the league championship (actually, all postseason games,

If you must change OT …

NFL OWNERS APPROVE 'MODIFIED SUDDEN DEATH' We think that the overtime format, more than 50 years removed from its first use with no modification, has worked just fine. However, if we were on the Competition Committee—and we had to make a modification to overtime—we would have considered the following proposals before

Created controversy causes Competition Committee to cave

NFL OWNERS APPROVE 'MODIFIED SUDDEN DEATH' The Competition Committee moved on changing the dynamic of postseason overtime on a nonexistent platform: field position after a kickoff gives a short field for an easy put-the-game-away field goal. In postseason play, this situation has happened only three times. Yes, only three times has a

Consequences of modifed sudden death

NFL OWNERS APPROVE 'MODIFIED SUDDEN DEATH' Unintended consequences of the new rule (that we see) are: Overtime can end on an unspectacular loss on downs, or worse, a measurement. Now, imagine a team is short on fourth down by measurement, the other team begins to celebrate a win, and the replay booth challenges the

NFL APPROVES EXTRA-INNINGS OT

1st major modification in league history Yes, that headline is screaming. And for good reason. The NFL now can't simply resolve a tie game much like Major League Baseball (if necessary, play till 5 a.m. to resolve .006  percentage points in the standings), the NHL (after five minutes, go to a