NFL Rule Change- Not bad, not bad at all.....

[Northern Wish]

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The NFL has changed its overtime rules for playoff games.

Starting next season, if a team wins the coin toss and then kicks a field goal, the other team gets the ball. If the game becomes tied again after that next series, play will continue under the current sudden-death rules.

Should the team winning the toss immediately score a touchdown, then the game is over.

Team owners voted 28-4 on Tuesday in favor of the proposal at the NFL Annual Meeting. The Minnesota Vikings, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens were against the change.

The Saints' victory in the NFC Championship last season was just one of three playoff games that ended with a field goal on the opening possession of overtime. The winners of two of those games went on to claim the Super Bowl title.

OT playoff games won with FG on first possession

Game Result

2009 NFC Championship Saints 31, Vikings 28

2002 AFC Div playoff Titans 34, Steelers 31

2001 AFC Div playoff Patriots 16, Raiders 13

The Vikings lost last season's NFC Championship Game in overtime. The New Orleans Saints won the toss, drove downfield and kicked a field goal to win.

"Modified sudden death is an opportunity to make a pretty good rule ... even better," said Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay, co-chairman of the competition committee. "Statistically, it needed to change. It wasn't producing the 'fairest result.'"

Those statistics showed that since 1994, the team that won the overtime coin toss won the game 34.4 percent of the time on the first possession.

Overall, the team that correctly called the coin toss won overtime games 59.8 percent of the time in the last 15 years, or since kickoffs were moved back 5 yards to the 30.

"Plenty of people on the committee, myself included, are so-called traditionalists," Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian said. "I am proud to be one. But once you saw the statistics, it became obvious we had to do something."

The new rule applies only for playoff games. But McKay said even that could change, and several owners expressed interest in further discussions at their May meetings in Dallas.

"There was a lot of sentiment in the room to change this rule for the regular season," said McKay, who added that he doesn't expect that to happen this year. "Our thought is to take our time and study it a bit and make sure everyone understands the implications there would be for that."

McKay and Polian both said the Vikings-Saints game had little role in passage of the rule change.

"That's interesting," McKay said. "One of the teams that voted against was in the game and, last I checked, I don't think they won."

Wyche: Regular season needs it, too

The conversation about the new overtime rule is turning from a playoff-only change to the possibility of it being applied to the regular season....

[Guest Low Roller]

I was hoping for a 'topless cheerleaders' rule myself, but I guess this makes sense as well.

[c-towns]

I'm cool with this but why not have it in the regular season to? I think they're still discussing that though.

[Whitey]

Yeah, they are talking about implementing it for the regular season. I don't know why they haven't. If it is good enough for the post season, should be good enough for the regular season.

I still don't agree with not giving the opposing team a chance to score if the first team scored a touchdown. That does not make sense to me.

College football has the best overtime solution.

[TheSloth]

The Old Balls Favre rule and I like it.

College football OT is fucking unbelievable sometimes, sooooo good.