DALLAS — Josh Allen made only one major mistake in his epic quarterback showdown Sunday with Patrick Mahomes in the NFL playoffs.
He called tails instead of heads.
NFL’s playoff overtime rules are broken. Does college football hold the answer to fixing them?
That one error was decisive in Kansas City’s 42-36 overtime win over Buffalo and underscored why the NFL needs to look to the college game for a better system. Or at least the college game, circa 2019.
Simply put, NFL playoff overtime is broken and needs a fix.
One of the best playoff duels ever was decided by a coin flip to start overtime. Kansas City’s emphatic gesture to receive was almost an early celebration.
Mahomes and Allen had basically reduced the defenses to rubble in the fourth quarter with their perfection and high-octane offenses.
Sure enough, Mahomes led Kansas City down the field for the winning touchdown. Allen would never get his overtime chance, stuck on the sideline.
By a coin flip? Why not rock-paper-scissors?
It’s not the first time it’s happened. Three years ago, Kansas City lost the overtime coin flip to New England and Tom Brady did his thing while Mahomes could only watch.
“It worked out well for us this time, but sometimes whenever you got two teams going back and forth like you’re going, it kind of stinks that you don’t get to see the other guy go,” Mahomes told reporters afterward. “I’ll take the win this time. Obviously it hurt me last time.”
Via Sports Illustrated, under current NFL overtime rules, teams that have guessed correctly on the coin flip have won 10 of 11 playoff games, seven on first-possession touchdowns.
Kansas City pushed for an overtime rules change that would allow both teams to have possession beginning with the 2019 season. It never even got to the voting stage, according to The Washington Post.
While acknowledging the current rules favored his team Sunday, Kansas City coach Andy Reid told reporters he wouldn’t be opposed to re-examining the rule.
“It’s a hard thing,” Reid said. “It was great for us last night, but is it great for the game, which is the most important thing we should all be looking out for? To make things equal, it probably needs to be able to hit both offenses, both defenses.”
Don’t bet on it. The NFL is too stubborn and too convinced it has all the right answers, let alone look to the college game. Ever since Baltimore beat the New York Giants in overtime in 1958 — the game many think made the NFL as a national TV product — sudden-death or variations have been a treasured precept.
To be fair, college football has moved in the wrong direction on overtime.
Texas A&M and LSU played an epic seven-overtime game won by the Aggies, 74-72, in 2018. Rulemakers worried about the wear and tear on players with nearly 200 snaps in the game and began tinkering with the rules. More changes came after Oklahoma’s four overtime win over Texas in 2020.
The current move to alternating 2-point conversions tries for the third overtime has turned college overtime into soccer with its penalty kicks.
If you’re the NFL, put a two-overtime limit on the regular season with each team getting possessions at the 25-yard line. If it’s deadlocked after two overtimes, hey, nothing wrong with a tie in the regular season.
In playoff overtime, continue the game and force teams to go for a two-point conversion after touchdowns beginning in the third OT. Eventually, someone will misfire, someone will have a turnover.
And if it goes on for a while?
Don’t think anyone would have complained to see Mahomes and Allen trading scores a little longer on Sunday.
