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26 Nov 2008
In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
On Slate.com, Edward McClelland expresses his love for the tie game, remembering the famous Harvard-Yale game of 1968 as well as the Michigan State-Notre Dame Game of the Century in 1966. I must admit, I've been rooting for a tie pretty much every time I watched an overtime game over the past few years, just because it's so goofy and throws those playoff "who can clinch" lists into such a frenzy.
28 comments, Last at 29 Nov 2008, 5:20pm by Hummingbird Cyborg
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Comments
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
Yeah? Well if a tie is like kissing your sister, then a tie with the Bengals is like rimming your grandmother.
"A little celery is always nice after a good pee."
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
I nominate Harris for The Week In Quotes!
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
Seconded. Harris, that's awesome.
Phil Simms is a Cretin.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
I've had it. this is the dumbest analogy in all of sports. Tie games are generally entertaining contests that leave you unfulfilled and wanting more. How is that like kissing your sister, unless it refers to it in a repulsive, creepy or perverted way? If anything a tie is like getting action from your sister's friend, only having her walk in and block you before you can finish. Now that leaves you unfulfilled!
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
Overtime should be eliminated from the regular season. (In a similar vein as "if you don't want to see them celebrate, stop them from doing good") If you don't want a tie on your record, win it in regulation.
Having ties in the record would reduce the use of WTF tie-breaking procedures at year end. I would love to see how the last 10 years of NFL standings would have changed if overtime were eliminated and ties were more common.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
Good points, but what if you adopted the NHL model? Still have overtime, still have a winner and loser, but count overtime losses less severly than regulation losses? I.e. go to a "points" approach (in the NHL, a win is worth 3 points, an overtime loss worth one point, and a loss worth zero points). You'd get the benefit of making WTF tie-breaking procedures less common, since overtime losses would still help, you'd lessen the sting of losses where your team loses the toss and never even sees the ball in overtime, and yet you'd still give fans the satisfaction of declaring a clear winner.
The only downside I can see (and it is a big one) is that near the end of close games, coaches would go uber-conservative to try to at least get to overtime, and maybe even play for overtime when they would be better served by trying to win. Gone would be going for two to win the game after scoring at the end of the game, down by seven. Gone would be teams going for a FG to win it if they get the ball late in a tied game--they'd probably just kneel to go to overtime and at least earn their point.
But still...it's worth considering, isn't it?
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
A win in the NHL is worth two points whether the game goes to overtime or not, so it can be mutually advantageous to go to overtime. (There are three total points available in OT games, but only two in regulation games). Needless to say, this is a bad rule, as it can lead to both teams playing for the regulation tie, especially if it doesn't matter whether the other team gets one point or zero (inter-conference games).
However, no overtime rule could ever be worse than this soccer one was. I guess the NFL equivalent would be taking an intentional safety in regulation in order to score a field goal or touchdown in overtime to satisfy some net points tiebreaker, but that at least involves scoring more net points and would involve the sixth tiebreaker, an extremely unlikely scenario.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
The consensus of hockey fans is that the point for an OT loss is a bad rule (generally because they oppose rewarding losses. I have a different reason but come to a similar conclusion. See below). It's actually a holdover from back before hockey had shootouts, when a win was worth 2 points and a tie was 1. If you're in OT, and an OT loss results in 0, it's advantageous to play for a tie. This is boring, so the NHL changed the rule so that a tie and an OT loss were worth the same, so it was advantageous to play for the win in OT instead of the tie.
Along came shootouts and suddenly there were no ties. But the NHL never changed the rule back, this time because the current system keeps the maximum number of teams in the playoff race at the latest possible date. That's nice in terms of playoff races, but within games it leads to tied teams near the end of regulation playing for OT (and teams near the end of OT playing for shootouts if they think they'll have the upper hand there). Personally, I think it's more exciting if teams are always playing to win, so I favor removing the point for an OT/SO loss (so there's no incentive to play for OT instead of trying to win in regulation) and reducing the earned points for a SO win from 2 to 1. Imagine the mad scramble to win at the end of OT if a team needed 2 points and knew they could only get 1 by winning in a shootout.
(Formerly "The McNabb Bowl Game Anomaly")
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
The reason the NHL started playing regular season OT in the first place was that teams (especially on the road) would play for a tie in the last few minutes of regulation instead of going for the win. That downside would be equally frustrating in the NFL. A soccer-like system where a regulation win is worth three points, an OT win is worth two, and a tie or overtime loss is worth one would at least provide an incentive for teams to always play for the win.
Having said that, I don't have a problem with tie games. There are enough games where "neither team deserves to lose" or, on unfortunate occasions, to win. The problem is when teams become conservative to get the tie.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
In the NHL a win is worth two points, not three. Once the game goes to overtime the total points awarded becomes three though, as the winner will still get two, but the loser (inexplicably) gets one for, I guess, making it to overtime.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
I obviously need to watch more hockey. Or less soccer...I think I got the two-points, three-points thing mixed up.
I personally don't like shootouts, for the same reason why I don't like the college overtime format--I don't think the game should be decided by a fundamentally different style of play or game than the whole rest of the game. It feels artificial and I would rather a tie.
The best idea I've heard of for NFL times and overtime is to keep the NFL overtime system in tact (15 minutes of sudden death, a tie if not resolved), but get rid of the coin toss. Pre-designate by rule that either the home team (or the away team) will have to kick off to start overtime. I.e., build in a slight additional home field advantage (or a visitor advantage to counteract home field advantage). As long as every team has the same number of home and away games, it's fair. Then, at the end of a close game, you would have one team that would like to win in regulation but would be OK with playing for overtime, but the other would be furiously trying to score to win in regulation. And then no one can be upset that they got the loss because of a coin toss. It would be on the coach for going to overtime when he knew the other team would get the ball first.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
"Pre-designate by rule that either the home team (or the away team) will have to kick off to start overtime. I.e., build in a slight additional home field advantage (or a visitor advantage to counteract home field advantage). As long as every team has the same number of home and away games, it's fair."
This. The OT coin toss is silly, and we could then stop listening to people complain about their team losing the game over a coin toss. (I guess they could still complain that they lost because they were the visiting team or something, but that's inane even for internet football fans.)
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
I like this idea. Give the home team possession. The road team will try furiously to score (dare I say go for 2 and the win rather than kick the extra point for OT?) and the home team gets a built-in advantage. What's not to like?
(Formerly "The McNabb Bowl Game Anomaly")
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
This seems obvious to me and I think is what both the NHL and NFL should do:
Regulation win = 3 pts
OT win = 2 pts
OT Tie: 1.5 pts
OT loss = 1 pt
Reg loss = 0 pts
Each game has the same credit. Both teams receive a small penalty for not getting it done in regulation. OT results seem extremely random to me as well, so you do not deserve the same credit as a team who wins outright over the whole 60 minutes.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
Tie games always remind me of the Simpsons Episode where Bart and Lisa's teams tie each other at ice hockey, with Homer crying "they're both losers...Losers!" and Moleman yelling "We paid for blood." Then the whole thing ends in a riot. In fact, all tie games should end with a riot.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
... welcome to the world of soccer.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
One of the greatest tie games occurred in 1906, in the game that started the Little Brown Jug tradition... Minnesota, which trailed 6-0 late, rallied to score a touchdown with about a minute left. The crowd erupted and stormed the field, and in the bedlam and confusion Hurry Up Yost got his team out of the stadium, leaving behind the Jug with its date with immortality.
Due to the chaos, the Gophers never even attempted the extra point, nor was the remaining time played, and the game ended in a 6-6 tie, which is still the score painted on the Little Brown Jug to this day...
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
I, personally, am in favor of tie games during the regular season and leave the sudden death overtimes for post season only.
The greatest game ever played and the one that put the NFL on the map was the 1958 championship game between the Giants and Colts. I was only 10 at the time and my family, big Giant fans with no TV watched the game at a neighbors house. We were on the edge of our seats (well I and my friend were on the floor) the whole game and then they told us about sudden death overtime. What a tremendous game. Please don't mess with sudden death overtime but leave it for the playoffs.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
i also love ties. i wish every sport had them. then again, i also love championships that are decided by the regular season only. i'm not sure what happened to make american sports so playoff-centric and winner-centric, while soccer (the world's most popular sport, by far) is generally decided by the regular season and features many ties. is it something about us? who invented overtime? and playoffs? and why? the early days of the NFL and even baseball had ties aplenty and no postseason.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
Easy: Money. Playoffs means a bunch of extra games, guaranteed to have too good teams, playing with a lot on the line. Which means high ratings. Which means big advertising revenues.
You kind of need an NFL playoff because, with only 16 games, teams finishing with same records is common, and with incomplete connectivity of schedules, it's concievable that a clearly better team might have a slightly worse record just because of schedule. So if you had no playoff, you're back to the BCS--you have to decide your champion based on complex computer models or contraverisal polls of "experts". Baseball, with almost perfect connectivity of schedule (at least within each league), schedules of more uniform difficulty, and 162 games, generally doesn't have these problems, so having no baseball playoff, giving the pennant to the best team in each league, and having the world series between the two makes more sense. And you could probably get away with having ties in baseball, too.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
I hate people who hate ties. Seriously. It's always the dumbest person you know who says things like "I hate ties." It's the guy you hate listening to because every opinion he has he got from Moron Hour call-in sports talk radio.
The NHL and NBA the worst examples of caving in to the dumbass demographic. They play 84 regular season games! What, fans aren't entertained enough by nacho chips and arena music? Ugh. I need a drink.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
I hate people who hate people who hate ties!
Ties suck, it undermines the reason to play: to win.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
The NHL and NBA play 82 games. Hopefully the dumbass demographic they cater to can count! :)
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
I dislike ties, but regular season overtime in football is even worse. Especially in college football, where the championship participants are decided by polls and computer rankings, you're giving people and machines less accurate information to base their decisions on.
My new CuseFanInSoCal blog
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
To the guy that never played football (why is a tie like kissing your sister):
It makes more sense when its said to young men playing sports.
1.a. You want to kiss a girl
1.b. You want to win the game
2.a. You dont want to be the guy thats never kissed a girl
2.b. You dont want to lose.
3.a. Your sister is a girl
3.b. A tie isnt a loss
Its like saying, rationalizing a tie as not losing is analogous to rationalizing kissing your sister as kissing a girl.
Or, you would think 1 and 2 would mean the same thing, but because of contigancy 3, you can seem to succeed but ultimately you have failed.
Like someone else said, you play to win not not to lose. I hope this helped.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
My favorite method? During the regular season, ties end at regulation -- and it counts as a loss to both teams.
Why? You failed to win. Nothing but a win should count as a win, IMO.
During the playoffs, I favor Sudden Death. As for the argument that it's possible for one team not to get a chance to score during overtime, I'd argue the losing team had 60 minutes in which to score and therefore no grounds to complain.
I'm not as firm on the method for determining the team that gets first crack at the ball, though. "Home team" strikes me as a touch unfair but workable -- under the "You had 60 minutes to win, stop complaining" argument. Having a seperate coin-toss also seems a waste of time for a game that's already gone longer than it should. So I say just give it back to the team that won the first coin toss.
Re: In Praise of Kissing Your Sister
Using overtime to break a tie lacks imagination and brings its own set of problems. Here's an easy solution which works right up to the Super Bowl. If teams are tied at the end of regulation, then the visiting team wins.
This gets rid of unsatisfying overtime rules, too-long games, and the possible perversion of teams' incentives inherent in ties. It would make the end of regulation always interesting for close games.
Despite the fact that this gives the visiting team an unearned advantage, I don't think any home team would trade traditional home field advantage for my proposed advantage.
The NFL has TERRIFIC tiebreaking procedures.
I am also somebody who loves ties.
They create interesting situations for the playoffs which is a lot of fun and they tend to be hard fought and defensive battles. I think of mucky grimy games when I think of ties.
Anyhow, I think that the NFL has a great tiebreaking procedure. It has a single flaw and that is that the coin toss winner is more likely to win than the coin toss loser, but it succeeds at what should be most important to fans: Making it more exciting.
Teams try to win because they dread the lost coin toss. In a game against San Diego, Denver went for two in regulation to try to win it. Without sudden death, this was much less likely to happen. Denver knew that its defense wasn't up to the task of stopping San Diego, so a late gamble made a lot of sense since San Diego had shown a lack of an ability to keep Denver from advancing.
That game would probably not have been quite as exciting if Sudden Death didn't exist.
And in fact, part of what makes ties interesting is how rare they are. You watch as teams try to score on eachother knowing that it could end at any time. Then the period is coming to an end and nobody has scored. You can't help but be exhilerated about a tie actually coming to fruition. If it happened all of the time, or if there wasn't a threat for the game to end, the tie wouldn't be nearly as cool.
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