Silence does not mean that everyone agrees with you. Sometimes it just means that people forgot to write about it. I remember that game. It was an awesome finish. It was also highly exceptional. It did not feel cheap because returning a kickoff for a TD is a hard thing to do. Picking up a few first downs and kicking a field goal is not that hard to do, especially after 60 minutes of play when the defenses are often gassed.

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For the sake of "fairness" let's just require teams to play everyone on the roster for at least 1 quarter.

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Greg I know that. Just rattling a few chains.

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My chains are too heavy to rattle. They clank.

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that works too.

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The problem I have with people who argue that "well the defense should just make a stop" in OT is that even if they do make a stop their team still doesn't win which is where it becomes unfair. The team that loses the coin flip has to make a stop defensively AND drive down the field for a score. The team that wins the coin toss just has to drive down the field for the score. It would be ok with me if they moved their new OT rules to the regular season as well as the playoffs.

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It may well have been one of the most exciting finishes to a game ever (it was 8 years before my time so I can't speak from experience but from what you've described it sure as hell does sound exciting). However, it's anecdotal evidence so no, it doesn't prove or really validly support any argument. I don't even know what exactly you were trying to argue with that case but it is very much a statistical outlier regardless. That's probably the reason no one bothered to respond to it.

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Just because you disagree does not mean it is anecdotal. It reaffirms what I have been saying all along. It shows that OT games where both teams are not required to have the ball on offense can result in memorable, exciting games. Just because you are too young to have experienced it does not make it so. And I will repeat, if both teams are required to have the ball there will never ever be these types of games again. That they don't happen all the time makes it all the better.

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Never be these types of games again? What about returns at the very end of the game (like what happened in the Giants and Eagles game last year)? That happened regardless of what playoff system was in place. What about in the current playoff system if the first team scored a field goal (or didn't score at all for that matter) and the second team returned the next kickoff/punt for a touchdown to win?

Me disagreeing with you on overtime is not what makes it anecdotal. I called it such as it is a rare exception and not representative of what usually happens in the current over time system. As I said, it's an outlier. I also never said it wasn't exciting (to the contrary, I said I believed you). I agree overtime games can be memorable and exciting and I find they usually are given their inherent closeness. I don't think anyone here has tried to claim they can't be memorable and exciting. Unless all you are trying to do is point out an exception, picking out one game from a sample of hundreds does not really tell you anything about how the system works overall. Which is what you seem to have been doing (pointing out an exception). So if so, my mistake.

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*sigh* my point was/is that changing the OT rules takes away this kind of a finish.
I am sorry I have not watched every single OT and nor do I have total recall on the ones I have watched. I am sure there were other OT games that were equally as exciting. My mentioning the Detroit-Bears game was not to twist the conversation into an unfair advantage. I was trying to explain where my love of the current rule structure came from. And why I don't want to see it messed with. If there is a chance for an exciting ending like that again I want to leave the rule alone. There is not a single fan that doesn't hope their team does the same thing when the ball is kicked to them to begin the OT period. There is not a single (knowledgeable) fan on the kicking team that hopes it doesn't happen to them. By leaving the current system in place it creates the possibility of that exact same ending every single game. Whether nor not it comes to pass is not the issue. That it can happen and has happened in the past is. And that hope/excitement is there for every single OT kickoff.

The exciting end of regulation games has nothing to do with OT and the coin flip.


That said I really wish I had stuck to my comment I made a few days ago and stopped arguing. Nothing is going to change and I am tired of it. I am disappointed in myself for getting drawn back into all of this. As I said before I am content with the current rules. Many of yo are not. The powers that be are not going to make any changes for at least 3-4 years. They will watch and see if the rule change of moving the ball up to the 35 yard line decreases the number of times the receiving team wins on the opening drive. They will watch to see how many times the team wins via a FG. After that they will decide if they want to make any other changes to the OT rules.

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