Two games. Eights hours. No winners and no losers.
That is the best way to describe the irritating endings to the Seahawks-Cardinals week 7 blunder and the Redskins-Bengals stalemate in London last week. When we as fans sit down to watch a game, we expect there to be one winner and one loser. It leaves a very unsettling feeling when we are left wondering who should have won a game.
Ties are an outdated feature in sports. The NBA and MLB never had them. College football adapted accordingly. Hell, even the NHL got rid of them. Why has the NFL not been more proactive in getting rid of them or at least reducing them.
Since 2012, there have been 5 ties, including a couple this season. Even one tie a season is too many. It looks terrible in the standings and it is unfair to the fans who spend hours watching these games only to have them end with no winners.
There are three options that the NFL should consider when it comes to getting rid of ties. Probably more, but who has time for that?
Option 1: Bring back the old overtime rule
I am not one to defend the old overtime rules, where the first to score wins. I thought it was extremely flawed and unfair to the team that did not win the coin toss. That being said, the NFL needed to further adapt the overtime rule before giving every team at least one possession and it has not.
From 1974 until 2011, when the old way of overtime was used, there were a total of 17 NFL ties. That is less than half the rate they have occurred in the last 5 years. Fans were much happier to see their games winning and even losing than spending several hours watching a game only to see a stalemate.
The fact that the NFL is having this many ties shows how flawed the new system is. It’s like getting rid of a broken part without replacing it. As unfair as the old overtime was, it at least did not make games last too long. That being said, this will never happen. Moving on!
Option 2: Fire all the kickers and replace them
Of the five ties that have occurred since 2012, four of them have involved one or more kickers missing chip shot field goals in overtime. I mean, come on Chandler Cantanzaro. Even I could have made a 24 yarder!
That being said, we are all human, even if we only have ONE JOB. Firing all kickers would be kind of a dick move. Last option!
Option 3: Eliminate Ties Altogether
I mean, is it really going to kill the players to play one more overtime? The Panthers and Rams did it in the 2004 playoffs.
The NBA has no limits on how many overtimes can be played. The MLB has had 18 inning games recently and it’s record is 25. Hockey implemented shootouts to get rid of ties. It’s the NFL’s turn to do something now.
In the past, I’ve heard player safety as an excuse for not playing more overtimes. If the NFL cared so much about player safety, why do they continuously have Thursday night games so players cannot rest up properly? Why do they keep floating the idea of increasing the regular season to 18 games? Why do they still have kickoffs?
The fact is, the NFL has a multitude of ways to keep players safer that they continue to ignore and players playing in a second or even third overtime is not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. NBA players play 3 overtimes and have to play a day later sometimes. NFL players get an entire week off.
Bottom line: NFL games should not be ending in ties anymore. Every sport except for soccer does not have stalemates. Do we really want to be like soccer? Yuck.
I’m sure almost all players and coaches would rather have a second overtime than have a game end in a tie. It’s time to implement it.
DGdub
FIRST