NFL Commish Predicts New Overtime System

[John Corn]

An overtime Super Bowl between the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers would sure put one of the NFL's hottest topics in perspective.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue predicted Friday that team owners would scrap the sudden-death format in March at their annual meetings. He expects a new overtime setup with each team getting at least one possession, and he has the support of Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney and players' union executive director Gene Upshaw."How we fine-tune the rule, I don't know, but I suspect the rule will be changed in that area," Tagliabue said during his annual state of the NFL address.

There were a record 25 overtime games in the regular season and one in the playoffs. Of those, 11 were won by the team that got the ball first and scored without the other team touching it.

For instance, Tennessee beat Pittsburgh 34-31 in the playoffs by winning the overtime coin toss and kicking a field goal. The Steelers never got the ball.

Since overtime was instituted in 1974, 28 percent of the teams getting the ball first have scored on their first possession.

Rest of the Story (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/APWires/sports/D7OP8Q280.html)

[Rusty]

I forget which website this idea came from but, today, I read what I thought was an interesting idea concerning the NFL's overtime rules.

The writer said that the league should change the rule to read that the first team to score a TOUCHDOWN wins the game. In other words, no field goal attempts are permitted in the sudden death OT.

This would mean that the team that wins the coin toss could still win an OT game without the other team ever getting the ball. However, having to score a TD certainly makes it a heck of a lot harder to score than simply making two or three first downs and kicking a FG.

What do you sports fans think of this idea?