NFL Owners Should Sack OT Proposal

So the gurus of the NFL competition committee wish to change the league's overtime rules for the postseason?

Yeah, well.

Leave it alone.

Under this proposal that smacks of needless panic, the Greatest Game Ever Played would have been known as The Colts Beat The Giants In Overtime During the 1958 NFL Championship Game.

And, yes, I know. If this proposal was law back then, Baltimore still would have won during the only NFL championship game ever to reach overtime. Not only that, Johnny Unitas and Alan Ameche still would have remained golden for the ages.

It's just that all of those things would have been significantly less golden, and such also will be the case for future winners of NFL championship games (now called Super Bowls, by the way) if the owners do the wrong thing as they gather in Orlando for meetings. That's where they can approve this silliness by having 24 out of the 32 guys in their midst vote yes.

The new overtime rules only would apply to the playoffs.

That's the first problem. You can't have one set of standards during the regular season and another when it counts the most.

Everything else about this proposal is worse. For instance: If a team scores a touchdown on its opening possession of overtime, it wins. I think. If it manages just a field goal, then the other team wins on the next drive with a touchdown. If that other team manages only a field goal on that drive, then the game goes to sudden death -- you know, if you have enough healthy bodies left on the field by then between yawns in the stands and television clicks back home to TV Land reruns.

Now what happens if the opening possession of overtime leads to a safety? Can that same team still win with a field goal?

If nobody scores on their opening possessions, will there be another coin flip, and will the losers have to play the rest of the way with one hand behind their backs?

I mean, if you have veteran players who don't know that regular-season games can end in ties ... then you can imagine the chaos that something like this would bring. It's too complicated. I mean, if you have veteran players who don't know that regular-season games can end in ties -- hello, Donovan McNabb -- then you can imagine the chaos that something like this would bring.

We already have sudden death in overtime, and it's simple. It's also at the right spot, which is after the extra period's coin flip, and it has worked just fine.

We're back to 1958, when all those folks couldn't breathe at Yankee Stadium. Part of the splendid tension combined with magic of that game was that the Giants won the opening kickoff. That meant the Colts needed to pass one of the true tests of champions by showing defensive guts. It wouldn't have been the same knowing that the Colts had significant wiggle room if they held the Giants to only a field goal, a safety or whatever else the new deal would be for future NFL teams.

So there were those Colts, with that sudden-death reality filling the air while playing on the road on hallowed ground, and they couldn't afford to exhale. They eventually forced the Giants to punt. Then the drama heightened when Unitas invented the two-minute drill on the spot. That's because he felt -- or he knew -- that he needed a touchdown. Not because of a convoluted rule by NFL folks, but because the Giants' offense was potent enough to score one way or another on their next drive. And because the Colts' field goal kicker was shaky at best. And because that's the way a guy thinks when he is the closest thing to a gunslinger in high-top cleats.

Eighty yards and Ameche later, Unitas got his touchdown, along with the glory that wouldn't have come under this proposal.

It's a knee-jerk proposal. After the New Orleans Saints kicked their way out of the NFC championship game and into the Super Bowl this season, there was fear among many that the Big One could end in sudden death someday.

Fear? How about joy?

How about 1958?

Oh, and how about injuries? The NFL has spent the last several years boasting of improving the safety of players -- regarding concussions and everything else. Well, the longer you play (as in longer postseason games under this proposal), the more chances you have of getting players bashed or bruised in ugly ways.

The competition committee likes to give the numbers, though. From 1974, when overtime was introduced to regular-season games, through 1993, the team that won the coin flip in overtime won as much as the team that lost it. In contrast, since 1994, the team winning the coin flip in overtime has won nearly 60 percent of the time. And through the decades, 70 percent of those games were decided by field goals.

No question, that explosion of coin-toss winners is directly proportional to the NFL pushing kickoffs back five yards in 1994 to the 30-yard line. League officials wanted more thrilling returns, and that happened, but so did this: Teams receiving the ball on the opening possession of overtime had an easier chance to score, especially given the added power and accuracy of the modern-day kicker.

Here's another thought: Why not move kickoffs back to the 40-yard line, and you wouldn't have to worry about any of this?

Better yet, why not just . . .

Well, you know what I'm going to say.