Where was Patrick Mahomes?
In the recent Afc Championship, the Chiefs faced off against the Patriots in a highly anticipated game. At the end of the 4th quarter, the Chiefs have the lead, but all of the sudden the Patriots kicked a field goal tieing the game and sending them to overtime. The officiating of the two championship games had already been questionable at best, but here is where things get sketchy.
For some reason, the overtime rules in the NFL are as follows. you flip a coin and whoever wins the coin flip, wins the game. Ok, not really but that might as well be the rule. Whoever wins the coin flip gets the ball and whoever scores first wins.
Back to the Chiefs-Patriots game, the Patriots win the coin toss, take the ball down the field, then scored. Wait, what? do the chiefs not even get a chance to score during the championship game? So basically, the championship game which chooses who gets to play in the super bowl was just determined by a coin toss. Does that seem fair?
Up until that point, it was an amazing game to watch. the game stayed pretty close the whole time and both teams are very talented. At the end of the fourth quarter, everyone was super tense, but once you saw who won the coin toss, you might as well have walked away from the tv. Both teams are very offensive focused and that made the coin toss even more influential.
The biggest problem with the OT for the chiefs is that right now there most valuable asset is their new quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. But, thanks to the OT rules, Mahomes never even got to see the ball.
Mahomes, even though he is a rookie player, he has the potential to become one of the best quarterbacks in the league. He just needs time in the position and experience playing in the league.
Most people believe that the NFL should adopt an overtime system similar to the one used in the NCCA Football. In college football, they still use a coin toss to decide which offense gets to start with the ball, however, after scoring the other team gets a chance to equalize the score. It will continue to go back and forth until one team prevails. while this will inevitably make games that go to overtime last longer, it will ensure that the games don't end with an unsatisfactory coin toss and offensive drive.
you could also implement a time limit into the over time. Maybe around 5–8 minutes? This would prevent excessively long games where the teams keep scoring. The biggest reason the NFL has yet to change their overtime rule is that they don't want games taking to long. they don't want games to be rescheduled and push other games back. they need to keep the tv schedule on time.
If the Nfl was to change their rules and overtime protocols, their broadcasts could be even more successful with more people watching the broadcast for longer.
