The NFL announced a change in overtime rules for the postseason at the annual league meeting in Palm Springs this week. In the playoffs, both teams will be allowed to possess the ball at least once in the overtime period, even if the first team scores a touchdown.
The rule had previously been that both teams would possess the ball unless the team with first possession scored a touchdown.
It will not affect regular-season games.
The Arizona Cardinals are no strangers to playoff overtime games. Their most recent one would have ended differently if this rule had been in place for the 2015 season.
After going 13-3 in the regular season in 2015, the Cardinals faced the Green Bay Packers at home in the divisional round and defeated them 26-20 in overtime.
It was a classic. Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers converted on two Hail Mary throws to force overtime. One was a 60-yard completion on 4th-and-20 and then, three plays later, as time expired, he threw a 41-yard touchdown pass.
However, there was no more magic for the Packers, as the Cardinals won the coin toss and Larry Fitzgerald brought some heroics. On the first play from scrimmage of the overtime, he took a Carson Palmer pass 75 yards, dodging defenders and stiff-arming others, to get to the five-yard line. Two plays later, he scored the game-winning touchdown to give the Cardinals a 26-20 win.
Green Bay never got to possess the ball.
If that game were have been played this next season, the Cardinals would have had to kick the extra point and then play defense, hopefully keeping the Packers from tying the score before the game went to sudden death.
The energy from the moment of those two plays by Fitzgerald was unmatched in my time in the stadium. Had that not been a game-ending play, it would have felt different.
Perhaps the Cardinals would have still won, but it would not have been quite as magical having to have played a series of defense.
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