The Buffalo Bills' painful overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night has spurred the latest round of calls for the NFL to adjust its OT rules.
Kansas City won the overtime coin flip Sunday and drove down the field for the game-winning touchdown. Bills QB Josh Allen, who shined, never touched the ball in OT.
Count Bills general manager Brandon Beane among those who would like to see each team get a chance in OT.
"At the end of the day, we lost the game the other night. But of course, we would've loved to, I think the TV audience would've loved to have seen Josh and our offense get it back," Beane said Wednesday, via Alaina Getzenberg of ESPN. "I would definitely love to see it brought back to the table. I'm not saying I have the exact idea, but I think there's some ways to do it. Without getting into detail, I think there's a way you can do it in the regular season that handles that, but let's do something in the postseason when it's all on the line."
The OT rules have been adjusted over the years. Before the 2010 postseason, all it took was a field goal to win. Then the NFL required a first-possession touchdown to end the game without the opponent touching the ball. Under these rules, coin toss winners came out victorious 52.8 percent of overtime games, per NFL Research. But in the postseason, coin-toss winners are 10-1.
Opponents of an OT rule change would simply suggest that Buffalo's defense should have gotten a stop.
With the Bills' dramatic loss, there appears to be a new push this offseason to adjust the rules, particularly for the playoffs.
The Chiefs were in a similar situation in the 2018 postseason, when Tom Brady's New England Patriots took the opening possession of overtime of the AFC Championship Game for a touchdown, not allowing Patrick Mahomes a chance to respond. That offseason, the Chiefs proposed changing the OT rules so each team could get the ball. Andy Reid reiterated this week that he wouldn't be opposed to a rule change, even if the current regulations benefited his team this time around.
To this point, changes to the overtime rules haven't garnered enough support among NFL owners to make a drastic overhaul. We'll see if this offseason brings a shift or if the league will stay the current course.
