Written by Michael Davis Smith at ProFootballTalk
For the second Sunday in a row we had a tie game in the NFL on Sunday, when Cincinnati and Washington couldn’t settle things after 75 minutes of play in London. Ties are dumb. Let’s get rid of them.
The NFL is unique among the major American sports in having ties. College football got rid of ties with its new overtime rule in 1996. Baseball and basketball have always kept playing until someone won, and even hockey got rid of ties. Why is the NFL still playing ties when everyone else has figured out that a game is supposed to have a winner and a loser?
After his team tied the Cardinals last week, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson offered a novel idea: Get rid of ties by having one final field goal with the game on the line: Flip a coin, let the winner of the coin flip try a 53-yard field goal. Make the field goal, win the game. Miss the field goal, lose the game.
I don’t like Wilson’s idea, but I do like his way of thinking: We need to get rid of ties, and settle them with something more dramatic. I like what soccer and hockey have done to eliminate ties, by going to a shootout format. The NFL doesn’t have an equivalent of a shootout (and I wouldn’t want to settle a tie with a field goal contest), but I do have my own idea for a shootout-like format to settle ties.
If the game is still tied after overtime, let the teams take turns getting one play to score a touchdown: First the home team’s offense gets the ball for one play at the 1-yard line against the visiting team’s defense. Then the visiting team’s offense gets the ball for one play at the 1-yard line against the home team’s defense. If one offense scores and the other offense doesn’t the team that scores wins. If neither teams score or both teams score, line up and do it again. The game is over when one team scores and the other team doesn’t.
That would be simple, and it would be exciting. And “simple” and “exciting” are two words that seem to be getting lost in the NFL these days, where every rule seems complex and convoluted, and the TV ratings are down as fans complain that the games just aren’t as fun.
Ties aren’t fun. Winning and losing is fun. Give us a winner and a loser in every game, NFL.
To continue reading this article, click here.
