The National Football League’s owners have instituted new overtime rules for the 2022 season, but the rules, adopted at the owners meetings in Palm Beach, Florida on Tuesday, will be for postseason play only.
The new rules will guarantee that each team will get a possession of the football in overtime, as beginning in the 2022 playoffs, if the team possessing the ball first in overtime scores a touchdown, the opposing side will get a possession to attempt to match that score. If that second possession were to go beyond 15 minutes of action, the game would be extended. If the teams trade touchdowns and match extra point attempts, then the next score would win the game.
The NFL owners had become concerned that the coin toss to begin the extra period had too much impact on postseason game results. Indianapolis and Philadelphia had brought the proposal to the group of 32 owners.
Criticisms to the old rule became louder after Tom Brady drove the New England Patriots to a game-ending touchdown on the first possession of overtime in the February 2017 Super Bowl win over the Atlanta Falcons. The following season, the Patriots reached the Super Bowl win an AFC Championship Game victory over Kansas City, as Brady drove the Patriots for the game-winning score without Patrick Mahomes ever touching the football after regulation time ended.
This year’s AFC Championship Game went the way of the Chiefs, with Patrick Mahomes driving Kansas City downfield for a touchdown pass to Travis Kelce to start overtime, again in a situation that saw Buffalo, and young standout quarterback Josh Allen, never given a chance to control the football.