NFL News: R.I.P. Sudden-Death Overtime, Your Demise Is Dumb

Overtime, as we know it, has officially died.

NFL owners voted today to make the regular-season version of overtime the same as the playoff version, which the league put into effect two years ago. 

It was always foolish to have separate sets of rules for the regular season and the playoffs, so I'm glad that they are back to being uniform. But I can't express enough how dumb I think the changes to overtime are in general.

Sudden-death overtime was one of the most dramatic elements in all of sports, and now it's done. Oh, sure, you may have the odd game that ends with a quick-strike touchdown, as we saw with Denver in the playoffs last year, but more often than not, each team will have a chance "to possess the football," to quote the league's language on the matter.

I'm sorry, but this whole "everyone gets a turn" attitude toward what once was a kill-or-be-killed affair is the height of absurdity to me. Teams have four quarters to "take turns." When overtime used to come, the tension went up, the stakes went through the roof—it was brilliant.

Now, that's all come to a stop because Roger Goodell and certain members of the NFL’s competition committee believed there was an unfair competitive advantage by winning the overtime coin toss, picking up a few first downs, kicking a field goal and winning the game without the coin-toss loser receiving at least one possession.

Well, they thought, "That's just not fair, darn it. Everyone should get some ice cream!"

There's a much simpler answer to this than changing the overtime rules. How about playing some defense? Of course, that's more difficult than ever these days with the ridiculous rules that favor the offense.

As usual, I know I am in the minority on this one. America wants everyone to have a turn.

I just think it takes something that was incredibly dramatic and reduces it to something that will drag things out unnecessarily. Still dramatic, certainly, but not nearly what it was. And that is a real shame.