The Final Four is in full swing, hockey and basketball playoffs are virtually moments away, and baseball’s Opening Day is in the air. So let’s talk a little football.
This week the NFL meets to discuss changes in the overtime rules. Specifically, they are meeting because they can no longer ignore the complaints that sudden death just isn’t fair. Or, to put it a bit more precisely, they can’t ignore the complains that sudden death, which has always been a bit unfair, has become, in a day and age when teams kick off from the 30 and when field goal kickers are pretty automatic, almost prohibitively unfair to the team that loses the coin toss in the overtime round. In response to this, the league, which doesn’t want to look like a bunch of damn liberals and just mandate that both teams get to possess the ball, is contemplating looking like a bunch of liberals on a congressional subcommittee, and mandating that both teams get to possess the ball, unless the first team to possess the ball scores a touchdown.
Now what in the name of Kill Bubba Kill Smith is going on here? First of all, having been reared on Butkus, Bednarik, Nitschke, Huff, Lambert, the Fearsome Foursome, the Steel Curtain, the Purple People Eaters and the Steel Curtain, I like football where the teams play a little defense. I hated that Green Bay-Arizona shootout in the playoffs this year, where both teams’ defenses resembled nothing so much as a group of pylons. Football is about offense and defense, and yes, it’s an advantage in sudden death to have the ball first, but that why need the defense needs some big fast mean sumbitches who can stop the other guys on third down.
But, yes, it is true that advances in the kicking game have given offenses tremendous advantage–better field position to start, and a shorter distance to cover to reach field goal range. But the answer to the problem needs to be a football answer, not a non-football answer, like acknowledging that defense is a secondary part of the game or that both sides should possess the ball (hey, in a game, neither side is actually guaranteed a possession!)
My answer is simple: eliminate the overtime kick-off. Treat the overtime period the way we three the second and fourth periods, and just play the game from point where the clock ran out. Obviously this will result in games where one team enjoys better field position than the other, but that position will result from the game action that preceded it, not from clean slate kick-off that gives the coin toss winner an advantage. And think of the quandries this will create for the coaches late in regulation–should they try to drive for the win, or punt the ball and set stick the other team deep in its own end?
Rather than change the rules for sudden-death (like the NFL did today), I would prefer that the NFL create a better balance between the offensive and defensive portions of the game. In the past decade or so, a number of rules—ranging from pass interference to blocking to roughing the quarterback—have been modified to favor the offensive teams, and in the process make the NFL increasingly resemble Arena League Football. It’s time to bring the double-forearm shiver as perfected by late Ray Nitschke back in vogue.