NFL Owners Vote to Reduce OT to 10 Minutes, Allow 2 Players to Return from IR

At the league's spring meeting in Chicago, NFL owners agreed to shorten overtime periods from 15 minutes to 10 minutes beginning in 2017, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday.

Owners also tweaked a rule regarding players on injured reserve. According to Rapoport, teams will now be able to bring two players off IR, up from one previously.          

Prior to the vote, NFL Media's Judy Battista wrote shortening overtime was a strong possibility, noting "the idea garnered strong support from coaches" at the NFL's annual meeting in March. The move was labeled a "player-safety issue."

ESPN.com's Kevin Seifert shared data compiled by Vince Masi of ESPN Stats & Information that estimated taking five minutes off OT would eliminate about 20 plays a season.

Seifert explained why it would make little difference in the grand scheme of things, however.

"Consider that in 2016, there were a total of 32,732 plays during the course of the regular season," he wrote. "Twenty plays in 32,732 is, well, a very small fraction of the total. Historically, there haven't been many overtime games that extend beyond 10 minutes. When they do, the amount of action past that point has mostly been negligible until a notable blip last season."

The MMQB's Andrew Brandt questioned the need for overtime at all if the NFL wants to reduce the number of injuries:

The Dallas Morning News' Tim Cowlishaw commended owners for making the change:

Battista highlighted a main concern of critics regarding 10-minute overtimes: an increased chance of more ties. She noted the number of ties in the last five years would've more than tripled—from five to 16—if overtime had ended after 10 minutes.