The NFL got everything it could ask for with a thrilling Wild Card weekend, and that included two overtime games — the Houston Texans prevailed over the Buffalo Bills in a wild contest and the Minnesota Vikings scored a touchdown on their first extra period possession to move on in the NFC and eliminate the New Orleans Saints.
It’s the latter game that I want to focus on, because it was ridiculous to watch Drew Brees standing on the sidelines and have no say in the final of this game. That’s two postseasons in a row in which a star QB (last year, it was Patrick Mahomes) watched overtime and didn’t get to touch the football once in the extra period.
Any rules that keep a future Hall of Famer and a quarterback who’s one of the most exciting players in the game on the sideline are flawed. The NFL needs to take some time this offseason to tweak them.
The fix is a simple one: use the college system. Give one team a possession and then the opposition gets to respond. The result from that back-and-forth either ends with a winner or another two possessions. I don’t love the idea of rotating two-point conversion attempts that college implemented when there’s a fifth round of overtime, but if that’s something the NFL needs to do, fine. Whatever the version the league wants to implement is good, just as long as it gives both teams a chance to touch the ball.
It’s just a bad look for your product when you leave stars on the sidelines, regardless of whether the league found a way to reward a whole team’s offense for scoring a touchdown on the first possession instead of settling for a field goal.
Here are others who agree:
