redlegsfan21
03-28-2007, 06:08 PM
By DAVE GOLDBERG
PHOENIX (AP) -It really should be simple. If nearly two-thirds of the NFL's overtime games last season were won by the team that won the coin toss, why not try to do something about it?
Nope. As they often do, the league's owners, coaches and general managers decided to put off what they couldn't agree upon - even something as simple as moving up the spot of the overtime kickoff 5 yards.
"The focus needs to be on winning the game in regulation," commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday. "If it's still an issue a year or two from now, we might want to take a look at it again."
Here's the current issue: last season, 64 percent of the teams that won the toss in overtime won the games. Not necessarily on the first possession, but eventually - in part because receiving a kickoff from the 30-yard-line game gave the receiving team field position it never lost.
Before the kickoff was moved from the 35 to the 30 nine years ago, the split was perfect, with each side winning half the games.
So why not do what was suggested by the competition committee: move the overtime kickoff back to the 35?
Because in the NFL, nothing is easy, whether the commissioner is Goodell, Paul Tagliabue or Pete Rozelle. That's because coaches have input into things like playing rules, and coaches by nature are a paranoid bunch reluctant to change anything if they think it might give the slightest advantage to the other guy.
So when a straw poll determined that 12 or 13 teams were against moving up the kickoff - enough to block a change that needed approval by 24 of the 32 teams - the proposal was tabled, to be discussed at the meetings in May, but not to be acted upon.
Take Tony Dungy, the most even-tempered of coaches, a man who is as fair as any of the 32 NFL head men. He also is chairman of the coaches' advisory committee to the competition committee.
"Everyone thinks it is not quite equitable," the Indianapolis coach said after the owners meetings broke up. "But the solutions we come up with are not necessarily better."
Whoa.
If statistics show that a 5-yard difference in the playoff spot could equalize things, isn't that better?
Dungy's Colts might be the last team to suffer. With Peyton Manning at quarterback, they can move the ball quickly and efficiently, even if they are forced to start at the 20-yard line after a touchback rather than the 25 or 30. New England can attest to that after the Colts came back from a 20-3 deficit to beat the Patriots in the AFC championship game last January.
And the Colts could benefit on defense - even with the resurgence that helped them win three playoff games and the Super Bowl over Chicago, they're not the sturdiest unit in the league by any measure. And, as usual, they've lost defenders in free agency, notably linebacker Cato June and cornerback Nick Harper, both starters last season.
So maybe those extra 5-8-10 yards they might pick up if they lost a coin toss and kicked off might keep the other team out of field-goal range.
But the issue goes far beyond Dungy and the Colts.
The NFL has always balked at the college overtime rule, in which each team gets to start at the 25 with alternate possessions until one scores more than the other.
One reason for the reluctance is that it takes special teams out of the game. Another is that games can go on for more than an hour, as a matchup between Arkansas (with Matt Jones at quarterback) and Mississippi (with Eli Manning) did several years ago.
"I remember watching that and wondering how they could keep on going. I'd never want to go through something like that," said New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin, whose quarterback now is Manning.
Another alternative is giving each team at least one possession in overtime, then following it with sudden death. But that gets little support, in part because teams that get the ball second have the same advantage of the team that starts second in college: the knowledge whether they need a field goal or a touchdown on their possession.
But all that begs the question.
When the team that wins the overtime coin toss wins the game nearly two-thirds of the time, that's too big an advantage. And it turns on a random call of "heads" or "tails"
Come on, guys. What's the big deal about 5 yards?
http://sports.myway.com/news/03282007/v1570.html
I totally agree with this writer. The Bengals-Steelers game on 12/31/06, I watched the coin flip, saw that Pittsburgh won, stopped watching the game.
PHOENIX (AP) -It really should be simple. If nearly two-thirds of the NFL's overtime games last season were won by the team that won the coin toss, why not try to do something about it?
Nope. As they often do, the league's owners, coaches and general managers decided to put off what they couldn't agree upon - even something as simple as moving up the spot of the overtime kickoff 5 yards.
"The focus needs to be on winning the game in regulation," commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday. "If it's still an issue a year or two from now, we might want to take a look at it again."
Here's the current issue: last season, 64 percent of the teams that won the toss in overtime won the games. Not necessarily on the first possession, but eventually - in part because receiving a kickoff from the 30-yard-line game gave the receiving team field position it never lost.
Before the kickoff was moved from the 35 to the 30 nine years ago, the split was perfect, with each side winning half the games.
So why not do what was suggested by the competition committee: move the overtime kickoff back to the 35?
Because in the NFL, nothing is easy, whether the commissioner is Goodell, Paul Tagliabue or Pete Rozelle. That's because coaches have input into things like playing rules, and coaches by nature are a paranoid bunch reluctant to change anything if they think it might give the slightest advantage to the other guy.
So when a straw poll determined that 12 or 13 teams were against moving up the kickoff - enough to block a change that needed approval by 24 of the 32 teams - the proposal was tabled, to be discussed at the meetings in May, but not to be acted upon.
Take Tony Dungy, the most even-tempered of coaches, a man who is as fair as any of the 32 NFL head men. He also is chairman of the coaches' advisory committee to the competition committee.
"Everyone thinks it is not quite equitable," the Indianapolis coach said after the owners meetings broke up. "But the solutions we come up with are not necessarily better."
Whoa.
If statistics show that a 5-yard difference in the playoff spot could equalize things, isn't that better?
Dungy's Colts might be the last team to suffer. With Peyton Manning at quarterback, they can move the ball quickly and efficiently, even if they are forced to start at the 20-yard line after a touchback rather than the 25 or 30. New England can attest to that after the Colts came back from a 20-3 deficit to beat the Patriots in the AFC championship game last January.
And the Colts could benefit on defense - even with the resurgence that helped them win three playoff games and the Super Bowl over Chicago, they're not the sturdiest unit in the league by any measure. And, as usual, they've lost defenders in free agency, notably linebacker Cato June and cornerback Nick Harper, both starters last season.
So maybe those extra 5-8-10 yards they might pick up if they lost a coin toss and kicked off might keep the other team out of field-goal range.
But the issue goes far beyond Dungy and the Colts.
The NFL has always balked at the college overtime rule, in which each team gets to start at the 25 with alternate possessions until one scores more than the other.
One reason for the reluctance is that it takes special teams out of the game. Another is that games can go on for more than an hour, as a matchup between Arkansas (with Matt Jones at quarterback) and Mississippi (with Eli Manning) did several years ago.
"I remember watching that and wondering how they could keep on going. I'd never want to go through something like that," said New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin, whose quarterback now is Manning.
Another alternative is giving each team at least one possession in overtime, then following it with sudden death. But that gets little support, in part because teams that get the ball second have the same advantage of the team that starts second in college: the knowledge whether they need a field goal or a touchdown on their possession.
But all that begs the question.
When the team that wins the overtime coin toss wins the game nearly two-thirds of the time, that's too big an advantage. And it turns on a random call of "heads" or "tails"
Come on, guys. What's the big deal about 5 yards?
http://sports.myway.com/news/03282007/v1570.html
I totally agree with this writer. The Bengals-Steelers game on 12/31/06, I watched the coin flip, saw that Pittsburgh won, stopped watching the game.