PALM BEACH, Fla. — The N.F.L.’s 32 golf equipment handed a rule change on Tuesday to make sure that each groups would possess the ball not less than as soon as in extra time of postseason video games. The measure comes months after Kansas Metropolis gained a divisional spherical playoff sport in opposition to the Buffalo Payments, who weren’t given an opportunity to attain in extra time.
The change within the league’s extra time guidelines was their first since 2010, when golf equipment voted to permit groups that scored a landing on the opening possession of extra time in a playoff sport to win. (Earlier than that, the workforce that scored first in any manner in extra time gained.) The rule, which by its nature gave a bonus to the workforce that gained the extra time coin toss, was prolonged to the common season in 2012.
Since 2010, there have been 12 postseason extra time video games, and the workforce that gained the coin toss previous extra time went on to win 10 of these 12 video games. Seven of these 10 wins got here on a first-drive landing.
The sport between Kansas Metropolis and Buffalo in January may need been essentially the most dramatic of all such video games. The 2 groups’ high-powered offenses scored a complete of 4 touchdowns within the ultimate two minutes of regulation, and Kansas Metropolis gained, 42-36, by scoring a landing on the primary possession of extra time.
Within the aftermath, commentators, followers and soccer executives lamented that viewers didn’t get to see the Payments and quarterback Josh Allen attempt to rating in extra time, too, a furor that catalyzed the league to undertake the brand new rule.
“There must be the newest instance for change, and that was the final straw that now, hey, we have to transfer ahead and do that,” stated Payments Coach Sean McDermott, who referred to as the rule change “bittersweet.” “It’s the correct factor for the sport.”
Each groups will now be assured not less than one possession, whatever the clock. If each groups rating a landing on their opening drives, then the workforce that scores subsequent wins.
The unique proposal for the rule change, which was made by workers members of the Indianapolis Colts and Philadelphia Eagles, would have lined each the 2022 common season and postseason. McDermott stated there was robust assist for making this modification just for the postseason, explaining, “That’s the place we have been going to start out.”
The rule change, nonetheless, will prolong video games. Some coaches, together with John Harbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens, flagged it as a participant security concern, a cause for limiting it to the postseason, when groups’ seasons are on the road.
Kansas Metropolis proposed extra time modifications after the 2018 season that may have given each groups a possession, after it misplaced the A.F.C. championship sport to the New England Patriots, who scored on a first-drive landing.
McDermott stated the Payments’ playoff sport in opposition to Kansas Metropolis was cited a number of instances within the assembly as groups mentioned the rule change.
“It’s doubtlessly the best 20 to half-hour of soccer that I’ve ever seen,” stated Wealthy McKay, the Atlanta Falcons’ president and the chairman of the N.F.L.’s competitors committee. “And to assume it ended that manner positively introduced up the thought of, hey, does that work for everyone?”
