NFL Talk - 2010-11 Season

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, I think I muddied up my point.

I guess what I was trying to say that things not starting on time or ending on time happens a lot when you're watching football on TV. And football's rules shouldn't have to conform to TV scheduling. If they did then they'd more tightly regulate when the games start and end and there'd be no overtime. If the OT rules were to change and that'd cause you to miss the end of a game, or the start of the game because of how your local station is airing them then tough luck. The games need not conform to TV schedules or ensure TV viewers get to see complete games. People who want to see complete games will likely have advanced sports packages through their cable or satellite services anyway. If someone doesn't want those upgraded services (for what ever reason) then tough cookies.

If the "fairness" of the games and the logic of the game is helped by treating OT differently at the cost of some TV viewers being annoyed, so what. It just makes no sense to be for OT to simply be "first to score wins" rather than just playing the full 15 and then calling it a win or tie.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

My point being that you don't need to have a full additional 15 minutes in order to be fair. You need to balance this interest of fairness with all other considerations to make the best overall product.

 

[chrisspringob]

Count me in as another who detests sudden death overtime. If they insist on keeping it, they should eliminate the field goal option. That would make it much more palatable.

I agree that something just doesn't feel right about NFL overtime. College rules are much more fun, and seem on the surface to be more fair.

But to make that case, that overtime is not fair until each offense has had the same number of possessions, wouldn't you have to make the same argument for regulation? Teams do not have an equal number possessions in regulation for a variety of reasons (onside kicks, safeties, end of the half, turnovers on kickoffs, etc.).

The only relevant statistic here is what %age of the time the winner of the coin toss wins the game. There's no correlation between who wins the coin toss at the beginning of the game, and who ultimately wins the game. Therefore, the opening coin toss isn't giving either team an unfair advantage.

But there's a huge correlation between who wins the *overtime* coin toss and who wins the game. According to this:

http://www.advancednflstats.com/2008/10/how-important-is-coin-flip-in-ot.html

teams that win the OT coin toss end up winning the game ~60% of the time. That puts a lot of weight on a purely random event (coin toss) that has nothing to do with the skill of the players. That's why this is something worth complaining about.

 

[Trekker4747]

How about this. What percentage of teams that win the opening coin toss, elect to receive, then go on to score on their first possession? Because that's what's happening in the OT coin-toss.

Of course there'd be do correlation between the opening toss and who wins the game, there's an hour of play-time between those two events with exchanging possessions and such. The coin-toss in OT could decide the game because if the receiving team does like most well-playing receiving teams and scores the game is over. Decided on the coin-toss.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

30% win in the first possession. Not half, but still more than I think it should be. I know defense is an important element, but, in regulation, holding a team to a field goal is often considered good defense. In overtime, it's a loss.

 

[chrisspringob]

How about this. What percentage of teams that win the opening coin toss, elect to receive, then go on to score on their first possession?

I don't know. Probably about the same percentage of teams that have the first possession in the 2nd half and score on *that* possession? That's what's different about the opening coin toss and the OT coin toss. With the former, you've still got two halves in which each team has a chance to receive first. So any difference in the number of possessions in the game is pretty much disconnected from who wins the opening coin toss.

 

[Timby]

I went over this on the last page. The "team wins the coin toss, marches down the field, scores and wins; other team's offense doesn't touch the ball" scenario happens about 30 percent of the time.

 

[chrisspringob]

I went over this on the last page. The "team wins the coin toss, marches down the field, scores and wins; other team's offense doesn't touch the ball" scenario happens about 30 percent of the time.

Right. But Trekker was asking about the opening coin toss for the whole game, not the opening coin toss for OT. I was just making the point that, statistically, the outcome of the opening coin toss for the whole game seems to have no impact on who wins. While the outcome of the coin toss for OT clearly does.

 

[Timby]

I don't have comprehensive statistics offhand, but I do know that the winner of the opening coin toss in the Super Bowl has won 21 of 44 games.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Winning the coin toss would be a significant advantage if OT is a fixed 15 minutes also btw. If you really wanted to make it fair you would need two OT halftimes. Just taking away the "sudden death" aspect wouldn't change much in that regard I think, statistically.

 

[Trekker4747]

I went over this on the last page. The "team wins the coin toss, marches down the field, scores and wins; other team's offense doesn't touch the ball" scenario happens about 30 percent of the time.

Right. But Trekker was asking about the opening coin toss for the whole game, not the opening coin toss for OT. I was just making the point that, statistically, the outcome of the opening coin toss for the whole game seems to have no impact on who wins. While the outcome of the coin toss for OT clearly does.

But, like I said, you're talking about two very different things. The team that doesn't receive following the opening coin toss can still get the ball! The opening coin toss has no effect on the game because of the receiving team scores the other team still gets a chance to score and an entire game takes place.

But, in overtime, if a team weans the coin toss, elects to receive, they get the ball. Now all they have to do is get inside the defense's 30, kick a FG, and win. The other team never having a chance to do anything. If this was regulation the scoring wouldn't matter because, hey, there's more game to play! So it's not fair to compare the opening toss with winning the game to the OT toss and winning the game. As both have different, long-term, outcomes.

Opening toss simply decides who's gets to receive/kick first and which side of the field the kicking team wants to defend int he first half. Doesn't matter if the receiving team scores or not because there's more game to play. There's no need to draw a connection because there's no connection to be made. Because kicking verses receiving doesn't matter. Sooner or later you'll get the ball.

In OT if a team is receiving they've a pretty good chance of scoring if their offense is up to snuff and able to get within their kicker's FG range.

 

[Saquist]

Really, the way I see it, just play the full 15 minutes and then call the game wherever it stands. This whole "play until someone scores" thing is just dumb. Hell just give them 15 minutes, no time-outs, no challenges, you can't even stop the clock. You've got fifteen minutes to figure things out and get the best score on the board.

I'm already pissed when I can't watch my game because somebody else is in Overtime. How bad would that be if they played a full 15?

It doesn't matter...5 or 15 minutes as long as this arbitrary...allow the other team to have the ball is done away with. What happens if a turn over occurs. It's stupid.

Play 5 of 15 minutes...no sudden death, tie are permitted.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I said allow one extra possession. Not sudden death, but only plays as long as necessary to resolve the tie if resolvable. Otherwise, 15 mins max.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me, though. And where does 5 mins come into play? Are we supposed to shorten it to 5? I've seen drives last longer than 5 minutes!

 

[chrisspringob]

But, like I said, you're talking about two very different things. The team that doesn't receive following the opening coin toss can still get the ball! The opening coin toss has no effect on the game because of the receiving team scores the other team still gets a chance to score and an entire game takes place.

But, in overtime, if a team weans the coin toss, elects to receive, they get the ball. Now all they have to do is get inside the defense's 30, kick a FG, and win. The other team never having a chance to do anything. If this was regulation the scoring wouldn't matter because, hey, there's more game to play! So it's not fair to compare the opening toss with winning the game to the OT toss and winning the game. As both have different, long-term, outcomes.

I'm not sure if I've communicated my point properly. I was only "comparing" the two coin tosses for the purpose of pointing out that one of them (the opening coin toss) has no impact on who wins, while the other (OT coin toss) does. You've explained the theoretical reason why this should be so, and I was pointing out that the statistics back this up. So I don't see how we disagree on any of this.

My point was just in response to this post:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=4516765#post4516765

about how teams can have different numbers of possessions during regulation, just like they do in OT. In regulation, it's due to actual play within the game, not a random coin toss. So that seems perfectly "fair" to me. Whereas the OT coin toss has a big influence on how many possessions each team gets. So that's why it's perfectly reasonable for people to call for a revised system.

 

[Thestral]

30% win in the first possession. Not half, but still more than I think it should be. I know defense is an important element, but, in regulation, holding a team to a field goal is often considered good defense. In overtime, it's a loss.

30% is fine by me. That means 70% of the time a defense has done its job at least once, and hey, each team has gotten to hold the ball at least once. Holding a team to a field goal is good defense if you've committed a turnover or allowed a big special-teams play, but it's a mitigated failure otherwise.

I like sudden death OT just fine because it can be short and dramatic, and it favors teams that have balance over glass cannons. I think a whole fifteen minutes is way too much, because then why not just play five quarters?

 

[Alidar Jarok]

30% the other team never touches the ball? This isn't they win overall, it's they win on the first drive that many times. It's not the majority, but it isn't an insignificant number either.

I agree that 15 mins is normally too much, I just think both teams should have a reasonable opportunity to score.

 

[Saquist]

I said allow one extra possession. Not sudden death, but only plays as long as necessary to resolve the tie if resolvable. Otherwise, 15 mins max.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me, though. And where does 5 mins come into play? Are we supposed to shorten it to 5? I've seen drives last longer than 5 minutes!

Sudden Death is the problem.
Get rid of it. Then you don't have to worry about who gets the ball when.
5 mins is enough time to run several hurry up offenses and that how over time should be played. One Time Out.

It doesn't need to be an entire other quarter. This forces the teams to pass the ball more often than run...or if they feel they are a superior run team...bleed the clock and keep the other team off the field while you score.
Either way would make for incredibly fast finishes and amazing heroics

 

[Skywalker]

I'd go for a ten minute overtime period. Each team gets one timeout and the coaches get one challenge apiece, but there aren't any two-minute warnings (the booth still reviews contentious plays with less than two minutes remaining, though). If the score's still even at the end of overtime, both teams walk out with a tie.

 

[SmoothieX]

 

[Yoda]

For sure SmoothieX.

Ravens got jobbed by the refs tonight.