Overtime system is here to stay -- deal with it

Two days later, I was on a San Francisco talk-radio program where the hosts discussed overtimes and offered a couple of alternatives to the NFL's current plan. One was the college idea, and, no thank you, we've been down that road already. Another was to have the team with the most yards on offense receive the opening kickoff, but that's a no can-do, too.

The hosts were incredulous, charging that the current setup is unjust -- weighted so heavily toward teams that receive the opening kickoffs because, as they put it, they're successful "something like 60 or 70 percent" of the time on their first possessions.

Scratch that one, too. There have been 432 regular-season games that have gone to overtimes since the rule was adopted in 1974, with the team that received the kickoff winning 30 percent of the time after one series. That means 70 percent of the time each club had at least one possession.

"We don't have enough players as it is (to go to the college system)," one GM said. "Some of those games go four and five series before they're decided. You ever see what happens to those teams the next week? They can't play."

One change I favored for years was to move the kickoff in overtime up from the 30 to, say, the 35 or 40 so that the receiving team must work its way into scoring position. The Chargers last weekend returned the opening kickoff to the 25, and that's OK. But often it's past the 30, and that's not.

So why not move the kickoff forward? I'll tell you why: Because the idea was proposed not that long ago, and it was voted down.

"I'm for the rule the way it is," Carolina general manager Marty Hurney said. "I think defenses should be part of the game."

Another idea has the game resuming in overtime exactly where it ended in the fourth quarter. Not bad. In fact, it gets points for creativity. The problem is that it doesn't seem to have anyone in the NFL hot and bothered.

"I have no problem with (overtimes in the NFL) now," Washington vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato said. "I know some people talk about each team having possessions like they do in college, but I'm OK with it the way it is."

There is another factor here I didn't consider until several general managers mentioned it, and that is this: Let's say you're tied, it's late in the fourth quarter and you know you will have at least one possession in overtime. How might that affect your play-calling if you have the ball in the last 31 seconds of the fourth quarter, as Indianapolis did last weekend?

Uh-huh, you probably play for the tie.

That was the complaint of NFL head coaches who were surveyed on this subject when it came up recently. When asked if they favored a change in the way the NFL runs its overtimes, they overwhelmingly rejected the idea, saying it might affect a team's desire to play to win in regulation.

"And if the coaches aren't going to endorse the idea," one league source said, "I don't see how anything gets done."

It won't. And that's because the idea that's in place now is better than anything else that's out there. Sure, teams occasionally get penalized, as Indianapolis did last weekend, but that happens when you can't close a deal -- and the Colts could not.

But their problem wasn't not getting the ball in overtime, it was not getting a first down on third-and-2 at the Indianapolis 9 with 2½ minutes left.

"There is no solution better than what we have," one general manager said.

I agree. Next.