So, what do y'all think of the change to the OT rule?  If I understand it correctly, it requires both teams to possess the ball once in the OT and after that, sudden death.  I think that's fine.  I does away with coin toss "bias".  I would probably have gone a little further and treated moving from one OT to another OT like changing between quarters until there is a sudden death winner.  All of this is fine in the post-season because there must be a winner to advance.

As for during the preseason and regular season, they should eliminate OT entirely.  It's safer for the players and gives added importance to playing to win at the end of games.

Agree completely on regular season.

We recently debated this at length in another thread, I think that the whole "everyone deserves a possession" mindset is flawed. If you couldn't manage to do enough to get the win within the first 60 minutes of play, nor were you able to effectively stop your opponent from scoring in the extra frame(s), is your team really the superior competitor?

One side effect I'll be curious to see is how teams will address postseason OT now, if they win/receive to start the period. Do teams go for the quick strike, or do they shift to a grind-fest and eat as much clock as they possibly can, and use the remaining time in regulation as a means to bolster their own defense? I wonder who the first player will be to take a knee at the one rather than score the easy touchdown so that the offense can shave another two minutes off the game clock. And oooooooo boy I'll be like a pig in slop when everyone laments that this is making an exciting end to a game a horrible letdown.

If we're going to give both teams a possession, I prefer we force a matched performance. If the first team gets a score on the first possession from their 30 in 1:52, the other team gets the option of either taking the ball at their 30 or receiving a kickoff to start their drive, but their clock counts down from 1:52. Fail to match the other team's score in that time, you lose; Match or beat the other team in less time, you win; match in the same time, we start a new overtime with 15:00 on the clock, and begin sudden death. It would give the receiving team a sense of urgency to get downfield and score, even if it's only an FG; if the second team only needs an FG to tie, they may chance the longer FG if time is short; the second team making a huge play to score quickly (like a KO return TD or a broken tackle) would get rewarded.

---

So, what do y'all think of the change to the OT rule?  If I understand it correctly, it requires both teams to possess the ball once in the OT and after that, sudden death.  I think that's fine.  I does away with coin toss "bias".  I would probably have gone a little further and treated moving from one OT to another OT like changing between quarters until there is a sudden death winner.  All of this is fine in the post-season because there must be a winner to advance.

As for during the preseason and regular season, they should eliminate OT entirely.  It's safer for the players and gives added importance to playing to win at the end of games.

I agree with you about eliminating regular season OT.
I don't think there's any benefit to regular season OT.

But I don't think the NFL fixed anything with this postseason rules change.  Sure, they guaranteed that each team gets to touch the ball, but, there's still going to be a huge statistical advantage to the team that wins the coin toss.  It might seem more fair to the fans, but it's going to be about the same as what we do now.  It's just going to take longer.

It's not a huge advantage. The only change is that if the offense scores a TD on the first possession, the D gets an opportunity to score a TD as well. Otherwise, the format remains unchanged - if the O got an FG, the second team knew that at minimum they had to get 3 or face defeat. So even in the new format, the D still knows what they must do to keep the game alive or win.

Maybe we can tweak the rule - toss winner scores TD on first possession, normal PAT format applies, team can kick for 1 or attempt a two-point try. Second team gets the ball and scores TD, they must attempt a two-point try. Does this force the receiving team to attempt 2, or trust that the other team won't be able to convert, should they score? If the first team fails on their two-pointer, and the other team fails as well, welcome sudden death!

---

I agree with you about eliminating regular season OT.
I don't think there's any benefit to regular season OT.

But I don't think the NFL fixed anything with this postseason rules change.  Sure, they guaranteed that each team gets to touch the ball, but, there's still going to be a huge statistical advantage to the team that wins the coin toss.  It might seem more fair to the fans, but it's going to be about the same as what we do now.  It's just going to take longer.

It's not a huge advantage. The only change is that if the offense scores a TD on the first possession, the D gets an opportunity to score a TD as well. Otherwise, the format remains unchanged - if the O got an FG, the second team knew that at minimum they had to get 3 or face defeat. So even in the new format, the D still knows what they must do to keep the game alive or win.

Maybe we can tweak the rule - toss winner scores TD on first possession, normal PAT format applies, team can kick for 1 or attempt a two-point try. Second team gets the ball and scores TD, they must attempt a two-point try. Does this force the receiving team to attempt 2, or trust that the other team won't be able to convert, should they score? If the first team fails on their two-pointer, and the other team fails as well, welcome sudden death!

If the teams match their performances on their first possessions, regardless of if they both score 0 or both score 3 or both score 7, all the team winning the toss has to do is score a field goal on their next possession.  It will work out to a big statistical advantage.  One team will have two opportunities to score, while the other team only gets one.  2 to 1 is far from fair play.
But your idea would make things a little more fair.  Still, the team winning the toss would have a huge undeserved advantage though.  What might reduce that advantage and even things out is if you didn't allow the team that won the toss to go for 2 on their first possession.  Suppose it's impossible for them to score 8, so they go for 1 and score 7.  Now the second team, you don't have to require them to go for 2, but you know they will.  Now you've created a scenario where OT will almost always be exactly one possession for each team.  That's more workable, to me.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.