BIG HEAD BASKETBALL NO FLASH SERIES

And there could be more changes to overtime in the future. But with the knowledge that the second team to possess the ball will likely go for two, does that make the first team more likely to go for two as well? It's hard to know at this point whether going first (if you score on the third possession, you win) or going second (you can know how many points you need to win) is more advantageous. The team that plays defense first is almost like the home team in baseball, knowing exactly how many points it needs to win - although if that team ties the game on its possession, the other team can win with a score, incentivizing a two-point try. The strategy could become fascinating and will ramp up the drama of the moment. It won't be that way anymore, at least in the playoffs, and that marks an important step forward. 'It's just crazy that that was the outcome.' 'You can fight your entire fight the whole game, and then the game comes down to a 50-50 chance of a coin toss.

'We should never let a football game be determined from a coin,' Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins said after that game. No one outside of Kansas City was satisfied watching that game and not getting to see Allen and the Bills one more time. 'That's an important thing.' And it was clear the fans - like many coaches, players and league insiders - want to see the best players play in the biggest moment. 'We always listen to the fans,' he insists.

a veteran in (Tom) Brady and you never got to see Mahomes get his chance.' Brady just took them right down the field.įans wondered too, and that, according to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, was the genesis for the change. 'I was watching that game going, 'Man, you got a young Mahomes vs. 'I think we thought about it before when it came up when Kansas City lost to New England that year,' says Bills GM Brandon Beane. The Bills-Chiefs game, though, was just so good, so exciting, so electric, that the disappointing ending turned out to be the final straw. There were cries for change after both those games, but the NFL resisted. Two years earlier, in Super Bowl LI, a game better known for the Patriots' stirring comeback from a 28-3 deficit, they won in overtime with a touchdown on the first series, with the Atlanta Falcons never getting a chance to touch the ball.

BIG HEAD BASKETBALL NO FLASH SERIES

The New England Patriots beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2018 AFC Championship Game when they won the coin toss and scored a touchdown on the first series of overtime. There's always got to be one last example, I guess, of why it needs to change, and unfortunately it happened to us.'Īctually, the Bills were far from the first, and it happened in higher-profile games, too. 'I don't believe in that, and I don't think this was.

'You never want it to be a knee-jerk reaction,' says Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott. But the image of Allen sitting on the sidelines watching Mahomes, never even getting a shot after such a brilliant performance, really turned out to be too much for many to bear. The nature of football is such that the winner of the coin toss is always going to have something of an advantage. Football is not like hockey or basketball, where the ball/puck is just up for grabs from the start, or baseball, where each team gets an equal number of outs and opportunities. Several ways to fix that issue were floated over the years - some of them wild - but everyone seemed to realize that there was no quick and equitable solution. Even if they didn't, a field goal was becoming nearly automatic, which set them up for an easy win if they got the ball back again.

So starting with the 2010 playoffs (and then the 2012 regular season), the NFL adopted the updated rule where both teams would get the ball unless the team that got the ball first scored a touchdown on its first drive.īut the NFL was entering a high-offense era, and the elite play of quarterbacks made it increasingly likely that teams could score a touchdown on their opening drive. That became an increasing issue as kickers became more accurate and the overtime coin toss became a stronger indicator of who would win.

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