During halftime of NBC’s Sunday Night Football this week, a few snippets aired of an interview Bob Costas did with retired coach, video game mogul, and revolutionary color commentator John Madden. A few subjects caught my interest, so I went on nbcsports.com and watched the entire interview (here).
One of Costas’ questions was in regards to the format of overtime in the NFL, and what Madden’s opinion is of the possibility of changing it, as has been talked about in recent years. I’ve penned my opinion on the subject before, but I hadn’t considered the unique concept that Madden suggested.
While he said he’d rather the current format go unchanged, Madden said that if the league were to change overtime rules, he would like to see the overtime period begin just as the second or fourth quarter would. In other words, after swapping sides of the field and a 2 minute timeout, the team with possession at the end of regulation would maintain posession at the same down, distance and field position in the overtime period.
This is interesting for a few different reasons:
1. It solves the biggest problem that opponents have with the current system – the coin toss. No longer would an arbitrary factor influence the outcome of the game as frequently as it currently does.
2. It does not compromise the integrity of the game, as many other suggested solutions would. The type of football that is played for the entirety of the game would remain the same into the extra period, without banishing use of the field goal, adding a possession, or sacrificing the element of sudden death.
3. A team down by 3 points would have added motivation to go for the victory (touchdown) in regulation rather than the tie (field goal), because they know that their opponent will have the opportunity to have a complete, uninterrupted series of downs after the ensuing kickoff, without expiration of the game clock being a factor and essentially “saving” them from having to defend an entire possession.
It’s been a number of years since John Madden has consistently delivered relevant football commentary. Toward the end of his broadcasting career, he seemed to become almost a parody of himself, without a hell of a lot of substance. But this particular idea is a very good one, and I’m pleased that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recognized Madden’s value and added him in a football advisory role to Goodell’s office, even if Madden’s value became difficult for many of the rest of us to recognize in recent years.