During any football game a fourth quarter comes around and when the game is tied a rush of excitement runs through the minds of football fans. With a tied fourth quarter means the chance of overtime, with NFL overtime rules, which is only pure excitement as a football fan.
Though overtime is exciting it can be quickly ruined by the rules that the NFL has in place for overtime. The collegiate level of football has much better rules for overtime that allow each team for a fair chance to win the game.
NFL Overtime Rules
Although we are quite blessed to finally have a change in the NFL rule book to allow overtime to be fair. We can see the clear impact that the old rules have on the league especially in the 2022 playoffs. The rules stated that there would be a coin toss at the beginning of the overtime and that the winner of the coin toss would choose if they wanted to receive the ball first.
In 2010 a rule was put into place that if the team with the ball first scores the game is over and that team wins. This is extremely flawed as the type of league that we are watching now. With offensive juggernauts in the league that can simply outscore any team.
Some games become simple matches of who can score more. This was most prevalent in the Chiefs and Bills 2022 playoffs where both teams were phenomenal at scoring. Every fan watching knew these teams were evenly matched. It so happens to be the Chiefs winning the coin toss and scoring the first touchdown to win the game.
NCAA Overtime Rules
In college the overtime rules work like this, both teams get a chance to score from the twenty five yard line and whichever team ends up with a higher score wins the game. This allows for a much more balanced game as it leaves it up to which team has more grit and determination to win the game.
If the game is still tied after each team gets three chances they will move to two point conversions until a winner is named. Although this is a much longer process to name a winner it’s much more balanced and fair.
The rules leave it up to which team has more grit and determination to win the game. Along with which team has better conditioning going into the game. Compared to the NFL overtime rules this is a large difference and doesn’t allow for ties to happen.
Luckily the NFL has changed its rules so that each team gets a chance to score; it only goes into sudden death after each team has had a chance to score. This rule change passed with a 29-3 vote which means it will be in place for the 2022-2023 and the fans of professional football are excited to see how teams now approach overtime with the new NFL overtime rules.
Read more about NFL vs. NCAAF.
