Thoughts on the 10 min OT period

[JohnH19]

I dissent with the opinions above, I hate tie games and want to do whatever possible to eliminate them.

As a fan, I watch a game to experience the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. A tie game to me means the game might as well have never been played.

College football with their overtime policy has eliminated tie games since 1995. Although I think there are problems with the college overtime system (it makes it to easy for teams to score, leading to inflated final scores) the fact that they have completely eliminated tie games makes a similar system something to consider.

One way to treat tie games that I've thought about would be to give the game to whichever team has the best W/L pct at the end of the year. For instance, suppose the Packers tie the Bears early in the season. The Packers finish 9-6-1 and the Bears finish 8-7-1. In my proposal, the Packers would earn a 10-6 record and the Bears would finish 8-8.

Assigning fictional wins and losses just to keep a third column out of the standings? Really? Believe me, Vikings fans felt plenty of agony with the tie result.

A much larger concern than the occasional tie game should be the phantom roughing the passer calls against both teams during the game. What a horrible rule.

[TodMaher]

How about going back to the old pre-1972 rule where ties don't count in the standings?

[JohnH19]

How about going back to the old pre-1972 rule where ties don't count in the standings?

I don’t agree with the old system of pretending a tie game wasn’t played. The game WAS played and it ended in a tie.

Disregarding tie games created the bizarre situation in the final week of the 1963 season when the 7-3-3 Steelers could have won the Eastern Conference championship by beating the 10-3 Giants. Thankfully, New York won the game 33-17.

[rhickok1109]

How about going back to the old pre-1972 rule where ties don't count in the standings?

I don’t agree with the old system of pretending a tie game wasn’t played. The game WAS played and it ended in a tie.

Disregarding tie games created the bizarre situation in the final week of the 1963 season when the 7-3-3 Steelers could have won the Eastern Conference championship by beating the 10-3 Giants. Thankfully, New York won the game 33-17.

The 1932 season was even more bizarre. With a 10-3-2 record, the Packers finished behind two teams that had only 12 wins between them: The Bears at 6-1-5 and the Spartans at 6-1-4.

[74_75_78_79_]

How about going back to the old pre-1972 rule where ties don't count in the standings?

I don’t agree with the old system of pretending a tie game wasn’t played. The game WAS played and it ended in a tie.

Disregarding tie games created the bizarre situation in the final week of the 1963 season when the 7-3-3 Steelers could have won the Eastern Conference championship by beating the 10-3 Giants. Thankfully, New York won the game 33-17.

The 1932 season was even more bizarre. With a 10-3-2 record, the Packers finished behind two teams that had only 12 wins between them: The Bears at 6-1-5 and the Spartans at 6-1-4.

Yeah, that was a ripoff. There should have been no playoff game in the first place. In this case, ties counting as each a half-win and half-loss, it should have went...

Packers 11-4 (.733), League Champions
Spartans 8-3 (.727)
Bears 8.5 wins, 3.5 losses (.708)

But those were the rules at the time, I guess, along with not all teams yet playing the same amount of games in a season.


The irony of bringing in OT in '74, of course, was that in Week #2 the Steelers & Broncos battled to a tie at Denver; 35-35, mind you. The next tie game would be two years later ('76) between the Rams & Vikings at the Met that ended up assuring all three division-winners in the NFC having different records: Dal 10-4, Min 11-2-1, LA 10-3-1. The next two tie games after that - in '78 & '80 - each took place in the NFC Central; the first one helping to decide who would finish 1st & 2nd-place, the second one deciding who finished 4th & 5th. The Jets/Dolphins tie in '82 helped to desicively decide 1st, 2nd, and 3rd amongst the three playoff-participants in the division: Mia 11-4-1, NYJ 10-5-1, Buf 10-6 (yes, ties are good).

1985 would be the only season in the '80s in which there wasn't a tie game. Chiefs were in two-consecutive in '88 (at Jets) & '89, the latter being Marty's immediate return to Cleveland - a game that definitely ended up affecting the playoff race that year. I'm no real fan of '82 yet alone the 'tournament' format actually applied, but a good question...if GB beats Colts instead of tie them, would they (6-3 in this case) have gotten the 2nd-seed over Dallas? If they lose, how far do they fall?

[Reaser]

Assigning fictional wins and losses just to keep a third column out of the standings? Really? Believe me, Vikings fans felt plenty of agony with the tie result.

A much larger concern than the occasional tie game should be the phantom roughing the passer calls against both teams during the game. What a horrible rule.

The roughing-the-passer calls were the type of things I was talking about in the season predictions thread. It's embarrassing.

As for ties, yet another proposal but it's how I've always thought about them. Never liked that they get "half a win", didn't like that they got points in NHL/soccer standings, didn't like that the old way in football was pretend the game wasn't played at all. They're ties, not wins, not losses. Standings should go wins, ties, losses. i.e. whoever has the most wins is placed above, if tied on wins then whoever has the most ties. So ties would be the first tiebreaker. To me 10-6 is better than 9-1-5 because winning 10 times is better than winning 9. It would be a loser mentality to say that "but losing only once is better than losing six times" because losing at all isn't good and the point is to win. Most wins, then ties. 10-5-1 beats 10-6. Always been my thought, at least. Though however they want to do it I've never had a problem with tie games in sports. Infinitely preferable to resorting to gimmicks to get a 'winner' -- with the exception being playoffs/championships/etc where you NEED someone to win to advance the bracket, though should avoid gimmicks in those cases, too.

[74_75_78_79_]

Assigning fictional wins and losses just to keep a third column out of the standings? Really? Believe me, Vikings fans felt plenty of agony with the tie result.

A much larger concern than the occasional tie game should be the phantom roughing the passer calls against both teams during the game. What a horrible rule.

The roughing-the-passer calls were the type of things I was talking about in the season predictions thread. It's embarrassing.

As for ties, yet another proposal but it's how I've always thought about them. Never liked that they get "half a win", didn't like that they got points in NHL/soccer standings, didn't like that the old way in football was pretend the game wasn't played at all. They're ties, not wins, not losses. Standings should go wins, ties, losses. i.e. whoever has the most wins is placed above, if tied on wins then whoever has the most ties. So ties would be the first tiebreaker. To me 10-6 is better than 9-1-5 because winning 10 times is better than winning 9. It would be a loser mentality to say that "but losing only once is better than losing six times" because losing at all isn't good and the point is to win. Most wins, then ties. 10-5-1 beats 10-6. Always been my thought, at least. Though however they want to do it I've never had a problem with tie games in sports. Infinitely preferable to resorting to gimmicks to get a 'winner' -- with the exception being playoffs/championships/etc where you NEED someone to win to advance the bracket, though should avoid gimmicks in those cases, too.

After thinking about that, I would have to agree! As you say, 10-6 should be better than 9-1-5. As Herm said, "You play to win the game", so wins should be awarded first and foremost. As long as both teams played the same amount of games that should be the fairest way to do it. I doubt the NFL would ever apply that though. In such a case, an 8-4-4 team would actually be a .500 one - lesser than a 9-7 team. That would be fair enough.