Super Bowl LVIII between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs went into overtime, testing the new rule approved by the league two years ago.
Under the old rules adopted in 2010, if the team that possessed the ball first in overtime scored a touchdown on that drive, it won the game. The other offense never got a chance to even take the field.
On the other hand, if the team possessing the ball first kicked a field goal, the other team got a chance to win the game with a touchdown or tie it with a field goal. At that point, the game becomes a sudden-death scenario.
The playoff overtime rules approved in 2022 guaranteed each team a possession. If the team that possesses the ball first does not score a touchdown, or if the score is tied after each team has had a possession, then sudden death sets in, and the next score wins the game.
Former New York Giants great Tiki Barber believes the overtime rules in the postseason are nonsense, claiming they make the clock irrelevant.
Tiki goes off on the “absolute nonsense” of the NFL’s new playoff overtime rules: pic.twitter.com/BtH8tL4brm
— WFAN Sports Radio (@WFAN660) February 12, 2024
“The new NFL overtime rule in the playoffs is nonsense. It’s absolute nonsense. To make a clock mean nothing is nonsense,” Barber said Monday on WFAN. “The clock has to end the game. I understand why they do it this way because you want to be fair. But it takes all urgency out of football.
“I hate that. Football, in my mind, is competing against an opponent. But it’s also competing against these forces that constrain you. It’s the field, it’s the officials, and it’s the clock. And overtime in the NFL playoffs, they have neutered the clock, and it makes no sense to me.”
I understand his point, but keep in mind, it’s the postseason. The game needs to produce a winner. In the old days (think the 1958 NFL Championship between the Giants and Baltimore Colts) it was a true sudden-death affair — first team to score wins.
The clock ticked, but it clearly was irrelevant when it came to urgency as Tiki was intimating. Isn’t that basically still the case? The only difference between 1958 and today is that both teams get a shot as the clock ticks in the background, albeit pointlessly.
