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Three years after the Kansas City Chiefs lost the AFC Championship game to the New England Patriots after being unable to the touch the ball in extra time, the NFL has modified extra time guidelines — however solely within the postseason.
On Tuesday, league homeowners voted to undertake a rule change put forth by the Indianapolis Colts and Philadelphia Eagles. Each groups would have the chance to own the ball throughout an extra time sport.
Below the beforehand current model of Rule 16, the primary group to obtain a kickoff in extra time (decided by a coin flip) may finish the sport just by scoring a landing — or by being scored upon throughout that possession.
Because the Chiefs and Patriots demonstrated within the 2018 AFC Championship (and the Chiefs and Buffalo Bills confirmed within the 2021 postseason), the prevailing rule made it potential for a playoff sport (even a Super Bowl) to be determined by an extra time interval during which one group by no means touched the ball.
Now, a playoff sport won’t ever once more finish that means. The most recent modification to Rule 16 will enable each groups to obtain a kickoff earlier than a postseason sport might be determined; as soon as each groups have accomplished a possession, the sport is over every time the tie is damaged.
The change proposed by the Colts and Eagles was supposed to use to all extra time video games. However the homeowners determined to go away Rule 16 unchanged for regular-season video games; the brand new modification will apply solely to postseason matchups.
Based on Falcons president Wealthy McKay — who chairs the league’s 10-member Competitors Committee — that adjustment was pushed by information. Below the latest model of Rule 16, 12 postseason video games have been determined in extra time. The groups successful the coin toss went 10-2. Seven of these 10 victories got here on extra time’s first possession.
However in regular-season games, just 52.8% of games are won by the winners of the coin toss. To McKay, that may be a decisive distinction.
“That information was compelling to us and to the league,” stated McKay, per Pro Football Talk. “Every a kind of ends any individual’s season, and so, to us, that is one thing we thought wanted to be modified.”
Left unsaid had been mentions of different penalties from regular-season extra time video games: their adverse impact on tv schedules and participant security. For all its faults, the unmodified Rule 16 has one benefit: it brings extra time video games to an finish as shortly as potential. The homeowners have apparently determined that if a group’s season isn’t on the road, that’s what’s most essential.
However McKay did say that Kansas Metropolis’s win in opposition to Buffalo within the most-recent postseason additionally performed a task within the change being made.
“Within the Buffalo sport this 12 months, it was the best 20, half-hour of soccer that I’ve ever seen. Ever. Simply watching a sport,” McKay marveled. “To assume that it ended that means positively introduced up the thought of, ‘Hey, is that equitable? Does that work for everyone?’ I’ve no query that began the dialogue. What usually occurs in these is they have an inclination to lose momentum as you get additional away from the sport — and that didn’t occur on this occasion.”
McKay was probably referring to the scenario following Kansas Metropolis’s loss to the Patriots following the 2018 season. As you’ll recall, the Chiefs proposed a similar change to Rule 16 after that defeat. However at the moment, the homeowners handed on the chance to alter extra time guidelines.
And why not? With out the offsides name in opposition to Dee Ford, that Kansas Metropolis-New England sport would have ended up as simply one other playoff contest the place the dropping group’s determined try to take the lead in the course of the closing minutes was blunted by an interception. It was in all probability so much simpler for NFL homeowners to recollect the tip of the Chiefs-Payments sport, during which quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen went blow-for-blow, exchanging the lead 4 occasions over the past two minutes.
As Pete Sweeney noted in these pages a month ago, it’s comprehensible for many who reside and breathe Chiefs soccer to be irked that the league has made this alteration now — as an alternative of three years in the past.
“The final time it helped a group, it was Brady — so in fact, the foundations didn’t change,” one may moderately say.
However for what it’s price, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid is on board — even within the afterglow of Kansas Metropolis’s most up-to-date victory.
“I’m glad we didn’t change them as of [Sunday night],” he joked after the extra time win over Buffalo. “I had an opportunity to speak to [Bills head coach] Sean [McDermott] afterwards, and that’s (I’m certain) one thing they’re going to have a look at once more, too — and I wouldn’t be against it.
“That’s a tough factor. It was nice for us final night time, however is it nice for the sport — which is crucial factor that we should always all be looking for? To make issues equal, it in all probability wants to have the ability to hit each offenses and each defenses.”
And now — a minimum of within the postseason — it’ll.
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