The NFL’s overtime rule could be changing yet again, and if it happens, we could see more tie games.
The NFL is considering the change for regular-season games because the league wants teams to be on an even playing field for Thursday night games.
According to NFL.com, the competition committee will propose a rule at the league’s annual Spring meeting that would reduce the length of overtime. If the rule were to pass, the overtime period would be shortened from 15 minutes to 10 minutes for all regular season and preseason games.
The rule will need a “yes” vote from 24 of the league’s 32 owners. If this new overtime rule were to pass, it would not have an effect on the playoffs. The postseason would still operate with an overtime period that runs for 15 minutes.
A shorter overtime would mean that we’d see more ties during the regular season.
There were a total of two ties during the 2016 season, which marked the first time since 1997 that there were multiple ties in a season.
There have been 83 regular season overtime games in the last 5 seasons. 22 of them (26.5%) featured an OT period that lasted 10+ minutes
In addition, Battista reported the committee also will propose to have officials, probably the referee, to be phased in to full-time positions by 2020.
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