For the past week I’ve had a slightly obscure story on the National Football League but kept quiet, for I do get tired of the classic journalism mental stance of you’re doing it wrong. It’s necessary and not always a mistake but I simply grow weary of it; have I led a life without error? Heh. Also, too, life path and personality often result in a vitriolic verbal lunge of you fucked up, not a measured examination of the issue, so I left it alone.
But on 60 Minutes last night Steve Croft led a segment on the league, rightfully highlighting its many successes, reinforcing yet again the primary issue here of a hugely successful organization of making not an error but continuing one in the face of monstrous evidence. Why can’t apparently the best of the best of human organizations recognize and fix a huge obvious problem? The kernel of the issue lies in the league’s ridiculous and stupid overtime rules.
Over 25 years ago the NFL decided a tie game was a useless, irritating outcome in a contest of tribal violence, almost all the fans agreed, so the league initiated sudden-death overtime: if the game was tied after four quarters a coin was tossed, the winner given possession of the ball and the first team to score in any fashion instantly won. Interestingly, if no team scores after one quarter the game is still a tie.
It didn’t take long to statistically prove that of course the first team to possess the ball holds a huge advantage in a sudden-death environment, memory recalls that about 65% of the time the team to win the coin toss wins in overtime, a monstrous cliff of variation in statistics from a huge sample size. No doubt, sudden-death is unfair and a busted solution to a tie game that can still even produce a tie, but NFL fans shrugged along, is life perfect?
But then the NCAA decided tie games were to be forever gone and came up with a solution that seriously rocks. In college a coin is tossed for possession and the winner given the ball on the opponent’s 25 yard line with the excellent opportunity to score a field goal (3) or a touchdown(6) with a 1 or 2 point conversion. The first possessor could really muff it and score nothing.
Say they kick a field goal for 3, okay, the opponent is then given the ball at the 25 with the absolute imperative of matching the first score. If the opponent scores a touchdown they win; merely match the score of 3 and the whole process starts again until one team out-scores the other from the 25. Had the coin toss winner failed to score the opponent in theory could easily kick a field goal and win on the first play of their turn; if each team matches 2 touchdowns thereafter each touchdown must attempt the 2 point conversion.
Elegantly fair, beautifully simple, a complete blast to watch and actually delivering a solution that solves the issue, there can never be a tie. For over a decade the NFL sat there in lugubrious stupidity with a lousy overtime mental splat while a gorgeous NCAA model and solution ran right under their noses.
Then this year the league finally saw the light and laughably changed overtime rules for the playoffs only; how teams win in overtime can decide who gets to the playoffs, but never mind. The NFL saw the un-fairness of the coin toss and stated if the winner kicked a field goal from a regular kickoff first the opponent had a chance to match it. But then sudden death instantly kicks in as before, if the coin toss winner score a touchdown sudden death comes back.
What? How does any of this work? If sudden death is unfair, why allow it in the coin toss winner touchdown? Why allow it if each team scores a field goal? The rules are byzantine, watching the ref trying to explain it on the recent Niners-Giants game was an embarrassing mess no one could understand.
The NCAA model is fair, fun and perfect, why not use it? Is it patented? One could understand the NFL using something different it worked, but they fell flat on their face with their mentally laughable attempt. These are intrinsic, critical rules to the outcome of their stated super-mega-ultra expertise, not regulations on how much the Dallas Cheerleaders can show with halter tops.
Could it really be just human ego that stopped the NFL from using a working model, that they couldn’t be shown up by the NCAA? I find that difficult to believe and sincerely hope not.
Well, nothing more profound here than change is very difficult for humans, even among the best and brightest, even when the problem is clearly seen, even when a working model is instantly available. Please try again, NFL, you’re doing it wrong.