The new shortened NFL overtime is stupid and pointless

Just another false NFL “attempt” at reducing injuries

The NFL loves to tinker with its rules and made news again this week when they changed their overtime rules. Five years ago, the NFL made a big change to overtime rules, making it so both teams were guaranteed an overtime possession unless the first scored a touchdown. Now the NFL has updated the rules again with a simpler change: The overtime period now lasts a maximum of 10 minutes instead of 15.

Of course the NFL is selling this as an attempt to reduce injuries, but you’re naive if you think this makes a real difference. There have been only 21 games in the past five seasons that made it to the final five minutes of overtime. This big injury-reducing change by the NFL saves about 29% of the teams each season from having to play an extra two to three minutes. This new rule decreases a team’s playing time for the entire season by 0.2% — and that’s only for the few that would’ve played the extra minutes.

Don’t kid yourself. The NFL has done almost nothing here to prevent injuries. Everything helps, but this is such a negligible difference it’s like a 500-pound dude only eating two Twinkies every day at 11 p.m. instead of three and calling it a weight-loss program. You’re not fooling anyone, NFL.

So what’s the point of this new shortened overtime then? Is it just a cosmetic change? Is the NFL just trying to save its TV windows from overlapping too much…