Radio personality Colin Cowherd said today on his FOX Sports show “The Herd” that the road team should get the ball first when NFL games go to overtime.
.@ColinCowherd‘s overtime rule change: Road team should always start with the ball first. #HerdHere https://t.co/0HcsLEddSN
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) January 18, 2016
What’s unclear from this clip is whether or not the home team would get a possession if the road team scores a touchdown on its first possession.
It would make sense for the home team to get a shot. If not, road teams would be more apt to play for overtime while home teams would have to go for the win at the end of regulation.
Even if both teams were guaranteed a possession in OT, the sudden-death element wouldn’t be lost because if the teams were still tied after their first possessions the next team to score would win.
Cowherd would rather see this than “an old man flipping a coin haphazardly.”
Before overtime in Saturday night’s NFC divisional playoff game between Packers and Cardinals, Aaron Rodgers demanded that the coin be flipped again because it didn’t flip while in the air. According to CBSSports.com, there’s no rule saying the coin actually has to flip.
The Cardinals won both the flip and the re-flip and scored on their first possession to win 26-20.
It wasn’t the first time an overtime coin toss has been disputed, and NFL officials seem to keep finding new ways to screw up. So maybe it’s time to eliminate the coin flip from the process of breaking ties in NFL games.
The NFL has always tried to distance itself from gambling. Isn’t flipping a coin one of the most basic forms of gambling?