Let’s begin with the simple—but important—acknowledgement that the NFL doesn’t care about you or me. Its main priority is shoving a timely amount of football down our throats and then passing off the baton to the league’s benefactors at CBS or NBC, which will try and keep us anchored to the couch with another few hours of advertising interspersed with episodes of The Equalizer.
Those at the NFL take the re-energized overtime discussion like they take most issues when they crop up over the course of the season: With a grain of salt they can pick out of their teeth with a folded $100 bill. There are a million different tweaks the league could make to optimize football but there is simply no reason for them to do so. We’re all hooked. We’re all zombies. There’s no better televised product on Earth, and this weekend’s games felt like being hooked to a serotonin drip. So what do they care if their overtime rules are fundamentally broken? What do they care if a great team had to go home on Sunday for no other reason than this is the way it’s always been?
I understand the sentiment coming from Arrowhead and the greater Midwest. A coin flip is inherently fair. It’s even. If you want the ball back, stop Patrick Mahomes from slinging it to Travis Kelce. If you can’t, well, tough. This is why we spend all this time practicing and acquiring good players.
