NFL playoff overtime rule change guarantees each team a possession

Better late than never?

The NFL is changing its overtime rules for the playoffs to guarantee each team a possession.

With many fans outraged in recent years with exciting playoff games ending without both teams having a chance to score, the NFL owners on Monday voted to approve an overtime proposal presented by the Colts and Eagles. The new rule will be implemented in 2022. 

Over the last decade, if the team with the first possession of overtime (almost always the team that wins the coin toss) scored a touchdown, the game would end. That will still be the case in regular-season games, but not in the playoffs. 

Before 2012, overtime was purely sudden death and did not require the team with the first possession to score a touchdown. 

The main concern that the new rule fixes is the outsized influence many believed the coin flip had on the outcome of NFL playoff games. Since 2012, NFL data shows the team winning the coin toss has won 50% of the time. But that number has ticked up in recent years, and it’s been even more unbalanced in the playoffs. In a dozen overtime postseason games under the current format, 10 of the 12 winners also won the coin toss. In seven of those games, the team that lost the coin flip didn’t get a chance to score.

The most recent example of this — which sparked outrage by fans on social media — was the Kansas City-Buffalo game in the AFC divisional round in January. The rollercoaster game ended anticlimactically, as the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs won the coin toss and marched downfield to score, leaving Josh Allen and the Bills without a chance to extend the game. 

Overtime will remain 10 minutes in the regular season. In the playoffs, when games can’t end in ties, overtime will extend until there is a winner. If a playoff game is tied after one or two possessions, overtime will become sudden death.