The annual NFL owners meetings are always a frenzy of narratives, speculations, and rule revisions. The meetings this year saw some notable developments. According to an NFL press release, the free kick formation regulations that were trialled in 2021 will become permanent this year. That's all right. It doesn't have much of an impact. The NFL's overtime rules are the subject of the second adjustment.

It's about damn time, eh?

The NFL has agreedto change its overtime rules after years of criticism. In overtime, the league has decided that all teams should get an opportunity to touch the ball...at least in the playoffs. Regular-season games will not be affected by the rule change, which allows a team to win the coin toss and score a touchdown on its first possession but not a field goal, which I believe is fair.

Overtime will be less likely to be decided by the coin toss.Overtime will be less likely to be decided by the coin toss.

In order to complete the game as swiftly and fairly as possible, overtime regulations should always be implemented. Since the NFL's sudden-death overtime regulation was abolished in 2012, teams that have received the ball first have won only 52.8 percent of regular-season games. The postseason is a different storey. With top-tier offences appearing more frequently in the postseason, the team that receives the ball first usually scores, and thus, since the NFL implemented this rule change in the 2011 playoffs, the team that receives the ball first has won 10 of the 12 games that have gone to overtime in the postseason.

It was obvious that something needed to change, but this was the incorrect decision.

As I have stated, the goal of overtime should be to bring the game to a conclusion as swiftly and fairly as feasible. You don't want to put any players at risk of major injury, so compelling them to play for longer than necessary is crucial. At the same time, you don't want to put the game's integrity in jeopardy. However, I'd like to add a third restriction to the overtime regulations. The overtime regulations should, ideally, include suspense. Even if it isn't, every moment should feel like a do-or-die situation. That does not appear to be the case with the new NFL overtime rules. The game will continue regardless of what happens on the opening possession. The second possession would undoubtedly feel life-or-death, but you could slumber during the first possession and wake up when the opposing team has the ball, knowing everything you need to know.

It makes no difference what occurs on overtime's first possession. The suspense does not begin until the second team receives the ball. The stakes are only set after the first team has had possession for a certain amount of time. That's not a good time. You want the audience to be involved at every phase of the process. This overtime policy falls short in this regard.

That's why I would have favoured the Tennessee Titans' proposed rule change, which would have maintained the NFL's overtime regulation basically intact while requiring the first team to score a touchdown AND complete a two-point attempt. It's not flawless, but it creates intrigue right away. The second team believes it must prevent its opponents from reaching the end zone because it thinks the game will be over if they do, yet the game will not necessarily conclude there. If a team does not wish to go for two, they do not have to. They may simply kick a field goal and hope for the best. Unlike the new rules, though, the tension builds from the start of overtime because the game may conclude on the first possession. Let's imagine the first squad decides to go for the two-point conversion. That's a huge moment in and of itself, but let's say they don't succeed. Both sides are under extreme duress right now. The offence must score a touchdown, while the defence must prevent the offence from doing so. All they need is a PAT to win if they get in.

It's *chef's kiss* lovely! And it's understandable, given that NFL teams convert two-point plays at a rate of approximately 49.6%. "OK, but that's true for every squad," you could say. We should look at the league's best teams and their two-point conversion rates since those are the ones who will make the playoffs." That's all right. San Francisco, New England, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Dallas, Tennessee, and Buffalo were among the teams who made the playoffs in 2021, with a two-point conversion rate of more than 50%. That's exactly half of the clubs who made it to the postseason. Guess what happens in 2020? It was seven points over and below 50 percent. In 2019, it was only four out of twelve, favouring the team that finished second.

That is why I find the NFL's new overtime rule revisions to be so disheartening. Not that the rules were modified, but that when given the option to change the regulations at all, the NFL chose the safest option with the least amount of public backlash. There were several better options available to the NFL owners, but they chose the most basic, turkey on white bread, which was a boring decision.