ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through the Super Bowl with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: How should the NFL handle overtime?
JODY SMITH
The arguments about player safety were null and void when the league added a 17th game that nobody had been clamoring for. With that, I've always felt like a "fifth quarter" should be added to the end of a game. The 15 extra minutes assures both teams should get at least one possession and team ahead at the end wins, just like the general rules of the game. Even if they cut the 15 minutes down to 10, there's still a solid chance both teams at least get a chance, rather than potentially losing a game with no shot to answer due to a coin flip.
Smith’s work can be seen at FantasyData.com.
MIKE NAZAREK
Simply put, I think it's time that the OT rules are changed to ensure that each team has at least one possession. In other words, if one team scores a TD on their first possession, the other team should still get one chance to try to score a tying TD as well before it becomes "sudden death."
Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc, celebrating 25 years online! His company offers a preseason draft guide, customizable cheat sheets, a multi-use fantasy drafting program including auction values, weekly in-season newsletters, injury reports and free NFL news (updated daily) at its web site, www.ffmastermind.com. He has been playing fantasy football since 1988 and is a four-peat champion of the SI.com Experts Fantasy League, a nationally published writer in several fantasy magazines and a former columnist for SI.com. He's also won nearly $30K in recent seasons of the FFPC High Stakes Main Event. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.
DAVID DOREY
The only change to overtime that should be made is that each team must get one series. So if the receiving team in overtime scores a touchdown -- like Kansas City just did -- then the opponent has a chance but must score a touchdown to continue. They already get a chance to match a field goal to extend overtime, the same should be extended for a touchdown. That still gives the coin-flip winner an advantage, but at least gives the other offense a chance to play in overtime.
Dorey co-founded The Huddle.com in 1997. He's ranked every player and projected every game for the last 23 years and is the author of Fantasy Football: The Next Level. David has appeared on numerous radio, television, newspaper and magazines over the last two decades.
IAN ALLAN
For starters, eliminate the coin toss. It’s not necessary, and it would help if teams were operating in the fourth quarter knowing whether they’d be kicking or receiving in overtime. That way, if a team scored a tying touchdown in the final seconds, if could potentially opt to attempt a 2-point conversion (if it feared kicking the ball away in OT). The additional coin toss doesn’t really serve any purpose. It could be tied to the initial coin toss, or there could just be the rule that the road team gets the ball first in overtime. For overtime itself, I think the current format works fine in the regular season, but I think it should be tweaked in the postseason. Guarantee both teams a possession. If the second team then had concerns about making a second stop, it would have the opportunity to attempt a 2-point conversion.
Allan co-founded Fantasy Football Index in 1987. He and fellow journalism student Bruce Taylor launched the first newsstand fantasy football magazine as a class project at the University of Washington. For more than three decades, Allan has written and edited most of the content published in the magazines, newsletters and at www.fantasyindex.com. An exhaustive researcher, he may be the only person in the country who has watched at least some of every preseason football game played since the early 1990s. Allan is a member of the FSTA Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.
SAM HENDRICKS
Overtime should not be the way it is now. I have a simple proposal. Both teams get the ball. The team that wins the coin toss and gets the ball first and scores then has to kick off to the other team and they get a chance to score. If the score is still tied after both teams have had a possession then the game would turn into sudden death. But the team who scores second has a decision to make. Kick the extra point and then have to kick off or go for a 2-point conversion and win or failing that lose. The regular season current OT system is fine. But in the playoffs give each team a chance. It is a crime to not allow the other team a chance to score a TD and perhaps win with a 2-point conversion. (And I can tell you what we should NOT have. A FG penalty kickoff where the teams kick FGs from the 30-yard line and the distance increases by 5 yards after every tie. Kind of like a soccer sudden death penalty shootout. NO!)
Hendricks is the author of Fantasy Football Guidebook, Fantasy Football Tips and Fantasy Football Basics, all available at ExtraPointPress.com, at all major bookstores, and at Amazon and BN.com. He is a 25-year fantasy football veteran who participates in the National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) and finished 7th and 16th overall in the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC). He won the Fantasy Index Open in 2013 and 2018.
JUSTIN ELEFF
If everyone is worried about the players’ health (especially now that we’ve increased both the number of games and the number of playoff teams), and ties are possible anyway, there shouldn’t be any overtime in the regular season. And then in the playoffs a tie should be broken by playing a full extra period — say 10 minutes instead of 15 — at a time. If some team is good enough at running ball-control that it can still win the coin toss and bleed out the whole period, such that the other team still never sees the ball in overtime, (a) it probably should have been able to win in regulation, but (b) so be it. And knowing that going to overtime adds at least 10 minutes to the game, with multiple overtimes extending things further, would almost certainly encourage teams to be more aggressive late in periods, playing for wins and not indefinite extensions. Bottom line: sudden death seems very much passé at this point, and I am all for making some changes.
Eleff hosts the Fantasy Index Podcast, available in the iTunes Store now. He has worked for Fantasy Index off and on all century.
ANDY RICHARDSON
I would like both teams to be assured of an offensive possession. I've wanted this for a while; it's not specific to Buffalo's loss. Offenses have a huge advantage over defenses by the time an extra period rolls around, especially given the emotion of these postseason games. I dislike the coin flip having such an impact on things. It's really a pretty minor change to the rule the NFL instituted a few years ago, where each team gets a possession if the first team doesn't score a touchdown. Just give each team a possession and be done with it. The second team will then have an option to win or lose on a 2-point try (should both teams score touchdowns); heck even the first team has that option, if they want to take the risk of pursuing an 8-point league. It was time 5-10 years ago; it's time now.
Richardson has been a contributing writer and editor to the Fantasy Football Index magazine and www.fantasyindex.com since 2002. His responsibilities include team defense and IDP projections and various site features, and he has run the magazine's annual experts draft and auction leagues since their inception. He previews all the NFL games on Saturdays and writes a wrap-up column on Mondays during the NFL season.