It’s time for the NFL to change its overtime rules

The Chiefs beat the Bills in the divisional round, but Josh Allen should have had a chance in overtime. It’s time for a rule change.

In the 2009 NFC Championship game, the New Orleans Saints beat the Minnesota Vikings, 31-28, on a 40-yard Garrett Hartley field goal with 10:15 left in overtime. The fact that Brett Favre wasn’t able to participate in Super Bowl XLIV caused the NFL to alter its overtime rules. Now, instead of a first-drive field goal winning the game, a team would have to score a touchdown or a safety on its first overtime drive to win, and if that team kicked a field goal, the opposing team would have an opportunity to tie or win from there.

In the last four seasons, we’ve seen two different instances in which outstanding NFL quarterbacks were denied any chance to help his team win a playoff game in overtime, because the opponents scored touchdowns on their first drives. There was the New England Patriots beating Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs in the 2018 AFC Championship game on a 13-play, 75-yard drive that ended with a two-yard Red Burkhead touchdown run. All Mahomes could do was walk off the field, and wait until next year.

Mahomes hasn’t missed an AFC Championship game since, and one reason he’ll make his fourth straight was his incredible performance late in the Chiefs’ 42-36 divisional round win over the Buffalo Bills. Josh Allen and his crew thought they had it won when Allen threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to Gabe Davis with 13 seconds left (it was Davis’ fourth touchdown catch of the game, setting a single-game postseason record), but Mahomes countered with his own particular magic, hitting Tyreek Hill for 18 yards and Travis Kelce for 25 yards, setting up Harrison Butker’s 49-yard field goal as regulation expired.

And then, after the Chiefs won the toss in overtime, Allen could do nothing but watch helplessly as Mahomes engineered an eight-play, 75-yard drive that ended with an eight-yard touchdown pass to Travis Kelce.

So, that’s two amazing quarterbacks denied any chance at winning, based on the luck of a coin toss. Does that seem fair after 60 game clock minutes of amazing play? In this case, does it make sense to slam the door in Allen’s face in a fourth quarter that featured 25 points and four lead changes in the final 1:54?

I think not.

It’s not that the NFL has to put in place some sort of over-complicated overtime system as the NCAA did — a system that eventually had to be amended to prevent 7OT insanities. But it’s simple common sense to, especially when both quarterbacks are this exceptional, give each quarterback a level chance to progress to the next round of the postseason.

If the NFL moved heaven and earth for Brett Favre, it can do so once again for Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen.