Report: NFL Expected To Shorten Overtime

The NFL’s spring league meeting is next week in Chicago, and it provides the second and final chance this offseason for the owners to approve rule changes for the 2017 season. And according to NFL.com’s Judy Battista, there’s a pretty sizable one on the verge of passing.

Back in March, the competition committee proposed the shortening of preseason and regular-season overtime periods because they believed it put certain teams at a disadvantage—those which played a full OT, up to 25 percent more snaps than everyone else, on a Sunday, then had to come back on short rest for a Thursday game. (It’s very NFL that the main concern here was maintaining competitiveness, not player safety, but whatever.)

Mike Florio doesn’t like the idea. He thinks a 10-minute overtime period will result in a different kind of competitive disadvantage, for teams that kick off to start overtime and then won’t be able to complete their offensive possession without having to go no-huddle or running out of time. That’s a fair criticism. Though for what it’s worth, only about a quarter of OT games over the last five seasons have lasted longer than 10 minutes.

I have my own proposal: Get rid of regular-season overtime! Who cares. Let games end in ties. Ties are great.