by Brian Pears

Created on: September 17, 2009

The NFL's overtime rule needs to be changed. To illustrate why, one only needs look at the problems arising from the way "football," as most of the rest of the world knows soccer, attempts to resolve games that end in a tie.

The most heated debate among the world's billion-plus soccer fans revolves around the way in which they settle games that cannot end in a tie, such as a tournament championship game. FIFA, the soccer world's governing body, handles the situation correctly after regulation time expires. They hold two additional fifteen minute periods, with a short break in between. Most importantly, they play the periods out in their entirety (that is, no American "sudden death," or "golden goal," as it is called in soccer.) Thus, the overtime periods end the same way the game itself does.

But when those third and fourth periods end, soccer reverts to a penalty shootout. This contrived solution involves each team taking at least five one-on-one goal scoring opportunities against the opposing goalie from a spot twelve yards from the goal line. If after five tries, the teams have scored the same number of penalties, the teams take alternating penalty shots until one misses and the other makes. Most fans rail against penalty kicks, claiming that they have little to do with how the game was played over the first 120 minutes.

Why the foray into a fringe sport in America in a discussion about the NFL overtime? Because it perfectly illustrates the inherent problem with the overtime rule as it stands today: it is contrived. It is unlike the regulation-time game itself, and for that reason, the NFL needs to revamp its rules.

The current overtime period is artificial because it takes away the strategy that makes a regulation-length game so fascinating. On a visceral level, football appears to be about brute strength, raw speed, and jaw-dropping athleticism. But if those were the only things that appealed to fans, they could get the same experience watching Olympic sports.

What makes football so compelling is that teams of eleven strong, fast, athletic men compete according to strategies that are painstakingly developed over many hours of preparation. They are led by professional coaches, who run exhaustive practices designed to perfect everything that gets played out on the field. These coaches can have a tremendous impact. Quite often, in fact, when two teams that appear to be relatively equal in terms of talent, fans note that the difference between the winner

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