- Commissioner Roger Goodell supports the change. - Bradley Lail
The NFL owners' decision Tuesday to change the rules so that a playoff overtime game cannot end on a opening-possession field goal is the latest step in the evolution of the league's overtime rules. The league calls the newest overtime rules "modified sudden death," and although overtime has existed in the NFL since 1941, it actually has been modified and expanded several times.
The Birth of Overtime
In an era when pro sports is about winning and losing with no room for much else in between, it's difficult to imagine that in the NFL, a championship game could end in a tie. But from the league's first championship game, in 1933, to the title game in 1946, that scenario could have played out (fortunately for everyone involved, none of those games ended in a tie).
In 1941, the NFL adopted a rule that would prove to revolutionize the game. If, in a playoff game to decide a division champion, the teams were tied at the end of the regulation four quarters, the game would go into overtime -- or “sudden death” -- in which the first team to score would be declared the winner. Just as to open a game, the team to get the ball first would be decided by a coin flip. In 1946, the overtime rule was expanded to the league championship.
The First Overtime Game
Although overtime was officially added to the rule book in 1941, the years began to pass without “sudden death” ever coming into play . But in 1955, Harry Glickman, who was in charge of promoting a preseason game in Portland, Oregon, between the Los Angeles Rams and New York Giants, asked the league for permission to change the rules for the game so that overtime would apply, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Web site.
Sure enough, the Giants' Alex Webster scored from 3 yards out in the fourth quarter to tie the score at 17-17. A few minutes later, the final gun sounded. But for the first time in NFL history, it wasn't actually the final gun. The Rams won the coin flip and quickly drove 70 yards, with Tank Younger plunging in from the 2-yard line to give Los Angeles the first overtime victory in NFL history.
The Greatest Game Ever Played
Seventeen years after its adoption, overtime finally came into play for its intended purpose – to decide a playoff game. With seven seconds left in the 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the Giants, Colts kicker Steve Myhra nailed a 20-yard field goal to tie the score at 17-17.
The Giants won the coin toss but were forced to punt after only three plays. The Colts took over at their 20 and marched down the field, with Alan Ameche scoring on a 1-yard dive to give Baltimore the first playoff overtime victory. Because of its role in popularizing the growing NFL – and especially because of the drama of the “sudden death” overtime – the game is still regarded as “the Greatest Game Ever Played.”
The Overtime Rule Expands Again
In 1974, the league adopted a slew of rule changes ramp up the excitement of NFL football. A central change was the expansion of overtime to regular-season and preseason games. However, only one 15-minute overtime session would be played in the regular season and preseason. If the teams remained tied after that session, the game would be declared a tie – unlike in the playoffs, where teams continued to play until one team scored.
It didn't take long for the NFL to get its first regular-season overtime game. On September 22, 1974, the Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers ended regulation tied at 35-35. Strangely enough, neither team scored in the overtime session, so the game was declared a tie.
NFL Targets First-Possession Field Goals
Perhaps spurred in part by the 2009 NFC championship game, which the New Orleans Saints won by kicking a field goal on the first possession of overtime, the NFL competition committee took aim at changing the overtime rule for the playoffs. The proposal the committee crafted mandated that a field goal on the first drive of “sudden death” could not win the game. On March 23, the owners approved the measure by a vote of 28-4.
Committee co-chairman Rich McKay cited as reasons for the change the increasing accuracy and distance of kickers in the past two decades as well as a 1994 rule change that moved kickoffs back to the 30-yard line. When they meet again in May, the owners will discuss expanding the rule change to regular-season games.
Interestingly, only three playoff games in the history of the NFL would have been affected by the latest rule change – and all have occurred since the 2001 season, starting with the infamous “tuck rule” game between the New England Patriots and Oakland Raiders. As of the end of the 2009 season, 27 playoff games have gone to overtime, meaning that the new rule would have applied in only 11 percent of playoff overtime games.
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