The Ravens have long been on the cutting edge and coach John Harbaugh has never shied away from meddling with the NFL rulebook, so it’s no surprise Baltimore was the franchise that proposed a rule change that would make overtime strategy a lot more interesting if approved.
According to Pro Football Talk, citing “multiple sources,” the Ravens have proposed a change to the overtime rule they are calling “pick and choose.” In short, one team would pick the spot of the ball for the initial drive of overtime, and the other team would pick whether to start on offense or defense. The team that wins the coin toss would get the first pick, and we’d return to true “sudden death” rules.
So, let’s say Team 1 wins the toss. It could then choose to spot the ball on the offense’s own one-yard line. Now, Team 2 has a decision to make: Is it confident it can drive 99 yards for a score? If so, it would probably choose to start on offense. If not, it would choose defense and try to play the field position game.
It really gets interesting when you start to think of specific matchups and how coaches feel about their team’s strengths and weaknesses.
Or think back to the AFC championship where Mahomes never got the ball: If Brady had been forced to drive from the 5…we’d be less angry at the rules and more appreciative of the offense.
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) March 4, 2021
(If you’ve forgotten how unfair that outcome felt back in 2019, you can watch the entire overtime here.)
Obviously, the strategic aspect makes this rule change appealing. Teams would have their analytics department studying the best strategies and coaches would have to change their approach every week based on the matchup. And then fans and media would get to second-guess those decisions.
But even more fun than that?
We’d get to find out how these coaches really feel about quarterbacks around the league. I’d imagine a team would do whatever it takes to keep the ball out of Mahomes’ hands. But how would they approach, say, Baker Mayfield? Would they dare Baker to drive the field and beat them? And if they did and Mayfield pulled it off, you just know he’d say something about it in the postgame presser. More beef is always fun!
Other than the fact that it’s different, there is no good reason for the NFL to not adopt this rule. It makes a random coin flip less important, it injects more strategy into the game and it creates more drama.
It’s everything you want in a rule change … which means the NFL will almost certainly shoot it down because — as we learned when the onside kick alternative was shot down last offseason — we can’t have too much fun.
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