by Cain Carpenter

Created on: July 24, 2009

There has been numerous debates over the years whether or not the NFL should adopt the college football style of overtime. While in some ways this looks like a good idea, it would quickly fall apart under further scrutiny. We believe that since college football can't get a playoff system right then surely they can get the overtime rules correct. This is completely wrong.

The main argument that college overtime proponents pitch out is that under their system it's more fair to both teams. Each get an opportunity to score and extend the overtime further. This sounds good on the outside but doesn't quite hold up when more thought is put into it.

Offering both teams equal opportunity is basically saying the defense really doesn't have to play well. With the current rules in the NFL it's sudden death overtime. You score you win. People argue that this isn't fair. If you lose the coin toss in the NFL before overtime people will say you have already lost. However if your team plays defense then it really doesn't matter. The college rules essentially give the defense a free pass on not having to play that series of downs. Statistically teams that win the coin toss in the NFL don't have a better opportunity of winning. It's only slightly above average that the team that wins the coin toss ends up winning the game. People tend to find fault in how this works based on just a few overtime games they have seen in the last several years, rather than the trend that's there over the last few decades.

The other side of the argument that most people don't present is how inflated stats would become. In college this is a bit of a problem however fewer people notice or care. In a double overtime game it's easier to tack on two more touchdown passes as a quarterback, simply because you start from a much shorter distance. In the NFL this would ruin the integrity of statistics for games that were played under the former rules.

The NFL has it right. It's much more exciting and entertaining to watch a game that could end at any moment. Not already knowing that there is for sure another set of downs coming from the opposing team. It's important for the NFL to be the trailblazers in their rules and methods. We can only hope that eventually college football will catch on and adopt these methods.

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