Overtime Rule Needs Adjustments

I think that it is pretty safe to say that a lot more people now are starting to question the whole "sudden death" overtime method that the NFL has used for however long.  According to overtime stats, over 60% of all teams that win the coin toss for overtime win the game, and about 35% of them win on an opening drive touchdown, where the team that starts out on defense never gets the ball.  That needs to change.  There is the flawed argument out there that if you are supposed to win, you need to be able to play defense too.  While that makes sense to a degree, the NFL is becoming more and more friendly to the offensive side of the football, and who is to say that the team who did not start with the ball wouldn't have scored a touchdown on their opening drive?

There are only two solutions to the format that I can think of, and I will do the one that I think is worse first.  It is to go to the college football format, where the teams start at the 25 yard line and you keep going until someone wins a game.  While that may provide more scoring, it is unrealistic to have teams start at the 25 and keeps putting the defenses at a disadvantage.  The scoring could consistently go into a fifth overtime or more.

What I think the simplest, easy solution to the overtime format is to just allow a rebuttal by the opposing team.  Say the Patriots kicked off to the Falcons after the touchdown, the Falcons would get a chance to score a touchdown in response.  If they don't, games over, if they do, the game continues.  Should the Patriots score a touchdown, the Falcons score a touchdown, and then the Patriots score again, the game is over.  You only get one freebie if you don't win the coin toss.  And the only way the Falcons would not have an offensive possession would be if they were to score a defensive touchdown, get a safety, or return a punt for a touchdown.  They wouldn't hand Matt Ryan the ball because they already scored due to points scored by the defense, and therefore wouldn't need to run up the score.

As a Packer fan, I have been arguing this for a long time, and have seen the two seasons prior to this one end in overtime to a team winning the coin toss and scoring a touchdown.  I had felt that if we had the ball, we could have scored a touchdown, but the coin toss took that away.  This brings me to another rule change that overtime needs, coin tosses should not decide who gets the ball in overtime.  It should be one of these three options: the team that lost the coin toss prior to regulation, the road team, or the team with the worse record.  If the NFL must continue with a coin toss, the team that did not get to "call it in the air" the last time should get to call it in overtime.

Finally, there should not be any ties in the NFL, whatsoever.  I know that the NFLPA doesn't want players out on the field for a second overtime in the regular season, but the two ties this season that occurred had a big effect on the NFC standings.  First, if Washington and Cincinnati did not tie, and say Washington won, they would have made the postseason over Detroit.  Second, Seattle had a tie with Arizona, and had they lost, they would have been the fourth seed, and had they won, they would have been the second seed.  Ties aren't good for the game, it should just continue until there is a winner.

I don't know why this hasn't been addressed ever, but it's a flaw that possibly cost the Falcons a Super Bowl title.  Yes, blowing a 19 point lead cost them a Super Bowl title mostly, but had they gotten the ball back, or maybe received the kickoff instead of New England, can you honestly tell me that there is no chance the Falcons would have scored?  I'm not talking to you, Patriots fans, I'm talking to the rational NFL fans.  Can you honestly tell me they would not have scored?