Polian: So You Want Overtime Rule Changed? This Is What I'd Recommend

(EDITOR’S NOTE: To listen to the Bill Polian interview, click on the following link: Ep 93: Bill Polian Joins To Talk Bills, NFL Overtime, and Hall of Fame | Spreaker)

It wouldn’t be the NFL playoffs if we didn’t have something to complain about, and the NFL’s current overtime rule is that something.

Like it. Loathe it. It doesn't matter. Everyone wants to talk about it after the Kansas City-Buffalo divisional round playoff game last week. The reason: Easy. The Chiefs won because they scored a touchdown on their opening possession of overtime, and Buffalo had no chance to reply.

Unfair? Critics think so. But that’s the way it goes under the current league rules for overtime. If the team with the opening possession scores a TD on that series, the game is over. If it doesn’t, its opponent has a chance to respond – with whatever score (a field goal, touchdown) ties or wins the game.

Of course, Buffalo never had that chance, and that has Bills’ Mafia … and plenty of others … clamoring for something different.

Like what? Well, Hall-of-Fame GM and former Buffalo GM Bill Polian has an idea, and it might fly with people on both sides of the fence: Simply allow both teams to have at least one possession, no matter what happens on the opening series. Then, if the game remains tied, the team that scores first wins.

“With the explosion of offenses,” he said on the latest “Eye Test for Two” podcast (fullpresscoverage.com), “and with the use of 53-and-a-third yards of width of the field, along with the length that we’ve always had … I think the advantage the offense has today with these running quarterbacks and their ability to throw the football 50 yards on a dime and make it where the defender can’t get near it ... is just too overwhelming.

“So I would be in favor of two possessions in the overtime … and you could probably take the coin toss out. I’d want to discuss that and hear other people’s point of view on that. Tradition means nothing to me. The idea that whoever lost the opening coin toss would automatically go first in the overtime ... that sounds suitable to me. If I was a member of the (competition) committee, that’s what I’d now be for.”

Polian was a member of the competition committee, which recommends rules changes, for 19 years and a supporter of the overtime rule in its present form – which is why his comments are especially noteworthy. Granted, he has ties to the Buffalo Bills, too, serving as their GM from 1986-92, but that has little to do with his stance on the rule. He believes a change is warranted because the rule, in its present form, is unfair.

But according to NFL Research, it really isn’t. Under the current rules, it said, teams that win overtime coin tosses have a record of 86-67-10, a 52.8 winning percentage. However, when you look at the numbers for overtime playoff games, the results are more skewed: Teams that win overtime coin tosses are 10-1, with seven of those clubs scoring on their opening drives.

It’s those figures that have Polian pushing for a change.

He conceded that he hasn’t had time to plot out all the “unintended consequences” of his proposal, but he also said “I’ve been through the discussion long enough to understand the unintended consequences” -- one of which is the prolongation of games to extreme lengths.

“You could put it in for one year only to see how it works,” he said of his idea. “Certainly, you can talk it through at the committee level. I’m certain that they will. Because some team (or) franchise is going to put in an overtime proposal. So the committee is going to have to deal with it.”