Peter King: The NFL must guarantee each team one possession in overtime | PFT on Yahoo Sports

Mike Florio and Peter King discuss the ways in which the NFL should evaluate and update its overtime rules, particularly in postseason matchups.

Video Transcript

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MIKE FLORIO: Time now for "PFT" on Yahoo Sports, Peter King, Mike Florio, the biggest stories in the National Football League. And one of the items that resonates, coming out of one of the all-time great games in league history, Bills/Chiefs , in the divisional round of the playoffs, overtime.

Has the time come to dispense with the coin flip that results in a team getting possession and always choosing possession. Because, more often than not, especially in today's high powered offensive game, with great quarterbacks, drive down the field, score a touchdown, advance to the next round. Peter, how would you change the overtime rules, specifically in the postseason?

PETER KING: Mike, I think the smartest thing to do is to absolutely, at minimum, guarantee each team one possession in overtime. I just think the coin flip has an inordinate bearing on the outcome of games. And not just on the outcome of games, but just on the way that each side basically strategizes going into an extra period.

Because you could inject strategy in the extra period if, for instance, you said both teams will get one possession. And if the first team scores a touchdown and kicks the extra point, the second team that gets the ball, that if it scores a touchdown after the first team scores, the second team then is mandated to try for two. So that--

Because Mike, I think the union would protest anything that makes games longer, we've seen that in the past. So I think the union's very happy if an overtime game ends after four or five minutes. It's fewer plays for the players to have to play. But I just think there has to be some way to make this more of a legitimate, fair game once you get to the extra period.

MIKE FLORIO: Fair is the key, and hinging the outcome of a game on the flip of a coin with that being the predominant factor-- I think I saw a stat yesterday from NFL Research that the team what that they are 10-1 in postseason since they changed the rule after the 2009 NFC Championship Game. 10-1 is the team that has won the opening toss of overtime. That's just, it's not fair.

And the spot and choose proposal from the Ravens, it was actually something that Michael David Smith of "PFT" first proposed when he was with Football Outsiders in 2003. The Ravens acknowledged that when they dusted it off and presented it last year, the idea that one team picks where that first drive in overtime would begin, and the other team picks whether to be on offense or defense.

It reminds me of the first lesson I ever learned about sharing from Sesame Street. When you're splitting a cookie in half, one person breaks the cookie, and the other person chooses which half of the cookie they're going to take. I kind of like the inherent fairness to that. The Ravens proposed it last year, it didn't get much steam. Do you think that that's something worth considering as a fair way to start overtime?

PETER KING: I don't see it Mike. Because, just imagine, you have come to overtime, to the start of overtime, you know, like on Sunday, the Kansas City/Buffalo overtime period. Let's say you're the Buffalo Bills, and you propose OK, we started at the 12 yard line. What's Andy Reid going to say? Of course, we'll take the ball, if you--

MIKE FLORIO: Then say the 11.

PETER KING: If you proposed it at the 2 yard line, I think either coach would have said, we'll take the ball. I mean they said that yesterday--

MIKE FLORIO: Even if it was the one, even if it was the one--

PETER KING: Yeah.

MIKE FLORIO: --the Chiefs would have taken it.

PETER KING: It's, that's the problem. And you know, on the surface, I thought that was a really interesting proposal, and I liked it. But we saw the massive hole in that proposal on Sunday. That you could give either team the ball at whatever yard line, and either coach would say I'll take the ball.

So although it's interesting to say, OK, you start at the one yard line, you've got to go 99 yards. I mean, we saw what happened at the end of that game. Both defenses were totally beat, and they weren't good enough to stop Allen and Mahomes anyway. So I don't think it works.

I think what works is making the second team to possess the ball in overtime, to basically say to them, OK if the first team scores a touchdown, kicks the extra point, you have to go for two. That means that what could happen there, is that if you win the toss to start overtime, you might defer.

MIKE FLORIO: My idea, which was taken by The Spring League, which I was fine with, and then used by XFL 2.0. I don't know if XFL 3.0 is going to use it. A two-point conversion shootout, like penalty kicks in soccer, penalty shots in hockey. You go two-point conversions back-to-back, three sessions, five sessions, or back and forth, one after another. I know it's not traditional scrimmage football, and there'll be a lot of people that don't like it. But it's fair, and that's all I'm looking for is something that is fair.

That's it for now. Thanks as always for some of your time. We'll see you again down the road.

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