It's not as good as I had hoped, but this rule change late last month does at least improve the NFL's overtime situation in the playoffs. With this modification, if the coin toss-winning team kicks a field goal on their first possession in OT, the other team gets one possession with which to try to score themselves. Other than that, it's business as usual in overtime, meaning that in all other scenarios it will be sudden death.
The biggest flaw in this change is that it doesn't apply to a touchdown scored on that opening drive of OT, meaning that the coin toss is still making too much of a difference. I would think it would've been better to say that both teams are guaranteed at least one set of offensive downs in OT, and just leave it at that (sudden death in all other ways). The other considerable mistake made, I think, was limiting this rule change to postseason games. After all, there will inevitably be a tied game late in the season where one or more playoff berths are on the line and a team will win the toss only to run a couple of plays and kick a game-winning field goal.
Of course, it was only three months ago that I was blogging about how the NFL should adopt the overtime structure of U.S. college football. If you really want the best team to win in overtime, I truly believe the "tit-for-tat" approach that the NCAA uses is the best. What the NFL voted in last month was better than nothing, but it still leaves some significant problems in place.
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