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01 Feb 2010
MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
This week, PK enlits Will Carroll to give us the scoop on Dwight Freeney's injury, continues his campaign against the current overtime structure, talks about the upcoming Hall of Fame vote, and rails against the evils of pressbox coffee.
45 comments, Last at 03 Feb 2010, 9:29am by This post is fungible
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Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
"I guess I'm the lucky one; I'm the Pro Football Writers Association's AFC pool reporter, assigned to watch Colts practices and write a daily report for the assembled media on their activities. I hope before the end of the week I'm able to see Freeney at least test the ankle in something close to full speed. We'll see."
He'll tell us all about it next monday.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Is there any dumber argument against coin-flip overtime than this?
"To those who say defense is an equal part of the game, I say, Why have only seven of the 460-some overtime coin-flip winners in NFL history chosen to play defense first if it's such an equal part of the game?"
Uh ... because it's easier to score points when you're on offense, no matter how good your defense is?
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
That's argument that comes up when people contend that the winner of the coin toss doesn't matter. And yes, I've heard people claim this.
OT is tragically flawed, and my team benefited from it last week. I have long held that a full period should be played. Then again, I also believe that there should be no overtime in the regular season.
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Sports talk radio and sports message boards are the killing fields of intellectual discourse.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
At the very least, allowing ties in regular season games would reduce the number of times the NFL has to use convoluted tiebreakers to determine which teams make the playoffs.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
But think how many fun sentences you can write using the same "logic." For example,
To those who say there is a good chance my house won't burn down, I say, why do most people by homeowners' insurance?
To those who say Peter Luger's serves better food than McDonald's, I say, why has McDonald's served billions and billions?
To those who think New Yorkers should be allowed to vote for Governor, I say, why do 49 out of the 50 states not allow New Yorkers to vote for Governor?
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
If they change it to each team gets one possession, he will find that teams choose to kickoff almost as often.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I disagree. If both teams get a possession, then I'd rather get the ball second, so I know whether I need 3 or 7 (or 8!) points to win.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
You're agreeing with him.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
New rule: no posting before coffee :)
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Ten teams have chosen to play defense in overtime, not seven.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Don't get me wrong, because I'll happily bash MMQB all freaking day. But unless I'm misunderstanding your point, I think he's saying the same thing you are. Of course everyone takes the ball in overtime, because everyone knows you're more likely to score when you have the ball.
His point is that there are actually idiots out there who claim that "it's the defense's job to stop them" somehow means that winning the coin toss doesn't give a disproportionate advantage. I've seen numerous professional commentators (including Tony Dungy, to my dismay), make this claim. And that's before we even get into the fact that NFL rules are more skewed than ever to favor the offense.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Exactly. Not sure why this is hard to grasp.
Re: Freeney might not play
Bullpucky! Indy pulled this bit before the Seahawks game and I thought we might have a chance with Freeney out. OK, OK, I was/am delusional. But Freeney killed us on his "injured" ankle.
Re: Freeney might not play
That game was muscular - it was his quad.
Ankle ligaments are a bit different.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
"I'm a great believer in prior performance with players. If a kid was great in high school, he'll usually be good in college. If he's good in college, he'll usually make the grade in the NFL." - Bill Walsh
With regards to Tebow, my biggest problem with applying the above quote is that you have to look at how he was good in college. Tebow didn't have success as a true passing quarterback in college; rather, his success came in running an offense that no NFL team runs. His success was comparable to Pat White's, and not really that much higher (don't forget how great a college career White had), and given the choice, the Dolphins went with Chad Henne as their full-time quarterback ahead of White.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Yea, it is about how it happened. If you had a magical wide receiver, who could ALWAYS get one foot inbounds and catch a pass, so long as it was thrown near him on the sidelines, he would be a beast in college. But in the pros, he would be worthless.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Not to mention that, if you were to take this quote as literally as that, then it would have made sense to draft Jack Thompson #3 in the '79 NFL draft (over Phil Simms and Joe Montana). Oh wait, that turned out to be a horrible decision.
Success in college alone is a horrible metric for judging talent; success in college with adjustments for context would probably yield better results.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Bill Walsh would also be someone who'd never use Tebow as a traditional quarterback, but would try to adopt the offense to work to Tebow's strengths, or try to fit Tebow in at other positions. I don't think, having read a few of his books, Walsh would ever see Tebow as someone fit to play as a normal quarterback in the NFL.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
My problem with changing the OT rules is sort of my problem with changing the bowl system in college: Even if you grant the current system is bad, I have yet to be convinced that any system replacing it is better. Absent any compelling reason there is a better system out there, then I don't want to change the system currently in place.
Of course, the "best" OT system would be a one quarter extra time, with the "winner" of that period winning the game (similar to basketball). Why is this a bad (or at least not very good) idea?
1) This would result in more injuries than the current system. This is the strongest argement against such a system.
2) If the period ends in a tie, what do you do then? Another 15 min period? This won't happen due to injury risk. End the game in a tie? This would result in more ties in football, which would not be an improvement. A sudden death? If so, why change the system now?
3) The winner of a quarter would be more likely to win by fluke than the winner over a whole game. The fluke may be one more possession (i.e. the winner of the coin flip), the team which falls on a fumble, gets a long punt return, etc. While this would lead to less probability that a fluke would determine the winner than a sudden death, it's not a very large improvement.
4) Finally, given that not many games end in ties anyway, the OT is not really a big part of the game in general, and usually not a problem. Without looking it up, I'd say that less than 1 in 20 NFL games end in OT (5%). Let's suppose that the current system gives the team winning the coin flip an advantage of 10%, which means that 10% of the 5% of OT games, the "wrong team" wins just due to the coin flip. This means that only 0.5% of all NFL games are determined through this rule, which is really not an improvement worth bothering over.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I agree that there doesn't seem like a good major revamp, but aren't there a couple of simple tweaks that would make overtime better. He points one out in the article, i.e. the move the kickoff back to the 35. (Alternately you could also have an auction for where the kickoff is placed) This would seem to fix much of the problem to me, since the real problem with the current overtime is field position. The offense doesn't have to have a really long drive to get in field goal range. Then you might still have teams winning on the opening posession but it will not be as high a percentage.
The other obvious tweak to me is to make it the first team to score 4+ points in OT wins. This way you would have to take the opening kick and score a td, reducing the number of first possesion wins. Plus it puts more importance on the offense and defense versus the kicker. This would be the tweak i would be most in favor of.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I would reply to your proposals that making the rules such like in OT would change the game more than the OT sudden death rule:
35 yard line is different from the 30, therefore it's less important to have a good kicking game in OT than in regulation, changing the nature of the game.
4+ is a very strange innovation, which also will change the nature of the game for no apparent improvement. What if the OT ends with neither team scoring more than 3? What if 1 scored 3 and the other doesn't? And how does that arbitrary marking make for a better product than the sudden death?
Overall, the argument seems to be the kicker (both in the kickoff and in FGs) has too much influence in OT. This may be, but at least it's a normal and regular part of the game, and you are not fundamentally changing it during overtime.
I just don't see how your proposal makes the game better.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I would argue that the current OT system already fundamentally changes the game, which is why kickers have added influence in OT. The game is changed because teams play for a field goal and an end of the game instead of playing to maximize their points. If we moved back the kickoff then it at least becomes more difficult to play for a field goal since the offense will have further to go to get in fg range on average.
The 4+ goes even further since it gives both teams incentive to go for a touchdown rather than accept a field goal, which is closer to what you would expect in regulation. After all it's not often that teams try to set up a 40 yrad field goal rather than get a first down in regulation. As for your other questions about the system, if neither team scores 4+, then the team at the end of the first OT period with more points wins. If tied at the end of the first OT period they keep playing until one team has crossed the 4+ barrier.
As for the idea of eliminating OT in the regular season and just playing an additional quarter in the playoffs, I think this would become problematic in the playoffs. I have no problem eliminating OT in the regular system, except it still leaves the playoff issue. What happens if the teams are still tied after the first OT period in a playoff game? Do you revert to sudden death? If so what is the point? If not then that would seem to be adding a lot of additional playing time to games, which could hurt the winning team going forward in the playoffs.
Ultimately whatever solution is probably going to change the game in some way in OT short of playing a whole new game.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
My basic point is that any OT will fundamentally change the way the game is played, so why complain about the current system? Unless you can show that the benefits of a different fundamental change is better than the drawbacks vs. the current system, there's no reason to change it.
I know and can see that the kicking game is a lot more important in the current rules than regulation games, but so what? If we went to any other system, some other aspect of the game would suddenly be more important than vs. the normal regulation game, and we'd be back to square 1.
Take the 4+ system. If you have the ball on the opponent's 20 facing 4th and 5, you are extremely likely to kick the field goal in regulation. In a 4+ OT? Not so much. You're much more likely to go for it in that situation. How is that a better system? Or rather, how is that difference from the regulation game better than the one currently in place?
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I get your basic point and there is some merit to it, but why let the perfect be the enemy of the good? Yes any OT solution will have some sort of fundamental change on the nature of the game barring a replay of the entire game. But that doesn't mean that we can't find a change that improves the current system. And the biggest problem with the current system is that it gives a little too much weight to the winner of the coin toss, though it's not as bad as how King makes it out to be.
And my point is that a large part of why the coin toss gets so much importance is because of improvements in the kicking game, and kicking off from the 30. My preferred tweak would be to do a simple auction for kickoff yard line. So the away team proposes a yard line for the kickoff and then the home team decides whether to kick of receive. This way the coin toss is eliminated (and the aspect of luck that goes with it), and replaces it with some strategy. I know this is fundamentally different than regulation, but as you say we can't get away from that. Just because there may be no perfect OT system, doesn't mean that the current one can't be improved.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
>If not then that would seem to be adding a lot
>of additional playing time to games, which could
>hurt the winning team going forward in the playoffs.
Fine with me, if they weren't good enough to win in regulation. A practical outcome of going to overtime--an OT win is not as good as a regulation win, under that rule.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Meant to include the analogy of winning a series in 4 games vs 7 games in baseball or basketball. If it takes you longer to advance, you may suffer in the next round, but whose fault is that?
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Of course, playing any overtime at all will result in more injuries than the system that was in place before 1974. This is the strongest argument in favor of eliminating regular season OT entirely.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
This, I would support. If you must have OT, make it only for playoffs. Then make it for a full 15 min, with another to be played after the first if the game is still tied. The stakes would be high enough, I think to risk the extra injuries.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
3) The winner of a quarter would be more likely to win by fluke than the winner over a whole game.
Right, but the whole point is that this is much less flukier than the current system, as witnessed in the GB/Arizona game or the NO/Minn game.
It doesn't need to be perfection. It just needs to remove the outcome that a non-football event has such a profound impact on the success or failure of a team. We all know football has plenty of non-predictive events, but at least those tend to either directly affect play or directly affect players; a coin flip is neither.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I address your point with my 4th point, that is the improvement over the current system isn't enough to bother with. When you add in the increased liklihood of injury, ending the OT in a tie, etc, I don't think the improvement would be worth it. Certainly it isn't demonstratively worth it, which is the standard when you are proposing a positive change over a system currently in place.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I've said it before, I'll say it again.
Keep sudden death.
Get rid of the coin toss.
Home team gets the ball first (or rather, "wins" the toss).
Eliminates the effect of a "non-football" event on the game, and everyone knows going in exactly which team is advantaged if the game goes to OT. And everyone gets that advantage the same number of times during the regular season.
Make home field advantage actually mean something more in the playoffs, so teams would be less likely to rest their starters once their playoff birth is locked up. And make conservative visiting coaches actually more likely to play for the win in regulation.
Or, if you don't like giving the home team an advantage, whoever got the ball first in the first half gets it first in OT. There is a perceived to an advantage to deferring and taking the ball in the second half--put in something to balance that and even out the number of times a coach defers.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
An interesting innovation, which may indeed represent an improvement over the current system. However my #4 point still stands that it wouldn't happen often enough to make much of a difference. And do home teams need even more of an edge during the playoffs? Don't they have enough anyway?
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I don't understand the assumption that there will be no NFL football in 2011, but there will be in 2012. If there will be a CBA acceptable to the owners in 2012, why wouldn't they accept it in 2011? Are they really willing to forego hundreds of millions of dollars in earnings for one year just to prove a point, or possibly recoup that money long-term with a better deal? I understand that the NHL owners did this, but many of them were losing money - I don't think any NFL owners are.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
The owners are hoping the players will have to accept a deal in 2012 the players wouldn't have taken in 2011. The latest media contracts include guaranteed payments for at least 2011 even if no football is being paid, so taking a year off is only a losing proposition in terms of opportunity cost, not in terms of cash in v. cash out. If they can get the deal they want in 2012, killing 2011 might be worth it if your time horizon extends out a couple years.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Aren't the owners being a little shortsighted there? They might get the TV money next year if there's a lockout but surely the TV networks would expect that money to be discounted from any future deal. Additionally, if the 2011 season is marred or cancelled as a result of labour diputes then future television revenues will be dramatically reduced due to fan disaffection and the lack of reliablility (either real or percieved) in their ability to deliver programming. If there is any lockout the NFL will have permenantly damaged the golden goose, it's very poor planning in the long term.
There is also the largely unmentioned possibility that another alternative league could arrive, the owners cannot continue without the players but the players can find new owners. I'd rather not see it happen but the owners have more to lose here, billion dollar franchises that would be worthless overnight, as opposed to the millions paid out to players. To see if this is realistic you'd have to know what percentage of NFL players were on contracts that ran for more than 2 seasons. If the vast majority would be free to join another league quickly then that scenario would become much more likely. The 6 years of experience before free agency that owners would expect in an uncapped league would then work against them.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
You have sixty minutes to win the game. If you can't get it done in that time and lose in OT without getting a possession tough break. You should have made the most of your chances during the game.
Having said that, if the current OT system is changed then I agree that an extra fifteen minute quarter should be played. I'd rather see them play an extra quarter with the same rules rather than some gimmick where each team gets a possession, or gets a shot from the opponents twenty yard line. The extra quarter creates its own problems though, and may result in more OT games.
Let's say I'm in a tie game with two minutes left and have the ball on offense. Rather than risk an interception and give the other team good field position why not just milk the clock play for the tie and get into OT.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I need to break something after reading the logic of the first paragraph.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
As long as we're sharing favorite OT fixes:
The only change I'd care to see is to get rid of the coin flip. The team that had the ball at the end of regulation gets to keep it with the same down-and-distance and on the same yard line they had it in regulation. Keep sudden death.
This will tend to benefit the team that had the lead before the score became tied. I'm fine with that.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Your last paragraph assumes that the team that has the ball at the end of regulation had been leading and that the other team just tied the game. It's certainly possible that the game didn't play out that way. The team that had the ball at the end of regulation could have been the one that tied the game and then gotten the ball back, the game could have been tied since the end of the third quarter, or halftime, or the end of the first quarter, etc.
As I have stated many times before, I love the current sudden death OT format. If the format were to be changed, the only change I would favor would be to move the OT kickoff to the 35 yard line, as proposed in the article.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I like the idea of continuing play at the same possession, down, distance, etc. This way there are no surprises (coin flips), so both teams have a better chance to plan their end-game. In addition, special teams do not change in importance in comparison to their importance at the end of regulation.
On the down side (or plus side?), there would be less use of a team's two-minute offense in tie games.
I think that teams at the end of regulation may think twice about playing for a tie (by either kicking a field goal or a 1-point PAT) and hence giving the opposition the next possession, as opposed to going for the go-ahead score. That might make games more exciting.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
The biggest problem with just continuing possession occurs when the game is tied late in the fourth quarter; if a team gets the ball with under two minutes left, you've removed all urgency from their gameplan, and urgency equals excitement, from an observer's point of view.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
I find this idea to be entirely distasteful.
It removes all incentive for the team with the ball to try to win a tied game near the end of regulation. It's makes the whole concept of a time-based game nebulous, which I think is a core aspect of Football. It's the same reason I don't like sudden death OT or college style OT (in addition to other reasons for college).
I'm almost on board with the people who say no OT for regular season and full quarter for playoffs. I like the 4+ idea as it actually gives the defending team a real chance.
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
How about soccer style penalty kick sudden death?
e.g. 5 2 point attempts for each offense, start at the normal distance from the goal line for these. Each offense takes it in turns to convert. After 5 goes each the winner is the team with most successful conversions. If its level it goes onto sudden death where the first team to convert when the other team doesn't wins. I think i'd advocate this for playoffs only, abolishing overtime altogether in regular season games
Or you could have a radical nhl type sudden death where its 1 WR vs 1 CB, QB tries to throw touchdowns from the 30. Think of the fun you could have with matchups, or just watching say wayne/manning match up against greer for 5 plays - trying to score tds on each
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
Let me get this straight: It's shameful the way the players in the Pro Bowl showed such a lack of effort, but Norv Turner should have let Chad Ochocinco kick? So it's OK for the coaches to not care about winning, but not the players?
Re: MMQB: Super Bowl XLIV Week Begins
See also, King's general outrage at players who hold-out or otherwise try to get themselves a better deal mid-contract vs. his indifference towards teams who release players mid-contract.
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