SmashMouth

Shorter overtimes are among the changes that will be coming to NFL games in 2017.

NFL team owners approved shortening overtime in the preseason and regular season from 15 to 10 minutes at the Spring League Meeting in Chicago on Tuesday, a league official told NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport. The approval comes after the proposal was initially presented to owners during the Annual League Meeting in March.

As NFL Network's Judy Battista pointed out, the rule change is aimed at improving player safety. There have been concerns about the number of additional plays teams undergo while playing a full 15-minute overtime period, especially when one of the teams is subject to playing its next game on a short week.

Some teams were initially concerned the condensed time period would limit their ability to control the ball during the extra frame, but it appears those worries have eased, at least for now.

Although the idea of a 10-minute overtime has been a polarizing issue, the change shouldn't lead to a significant increase in tie scores. According to NFL Research, there have been 83 overtime games over the last five seasons, 22 of them lasting at least 10 minutes into overtime (the average time elapsed in overtime in the last five years is 7 minutes, 43 seconds). There have been five games that ended in a tie in those five seasons, an average of one per year. If overtime had ended after 10 minutes, there would have been 16 total ties, for an average of 3.2 times over a 512-game season.

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foreverfan

What... that could make games boring and who likes boring?

CharityMike

But...on the bright side..now players can get back to doing this:

RaginCajun83

Yet another pointless rule change

MatthewT

The NFL needs to figure out a way to completely eliminate ties, not create rules that could possibly lead to more of them. We shall see...

SaintGup

How about this; the team with the most negative yardage loses ties? Imagine this; You've just tied the game with 30 seconds left and kicked off. The difference in negative yardage is three, with you having the most. You have all of your time-outs and know that taking a knee loses two yards a time so your opponent has to make a couple of plays. Any yardage now becomes vital.

hagan714

just use the coin flip already to get your winner or call a tie a tie

overtime is pansy ball now and pointless.

Give me full quarters till there is a winner and play like a freaking man

foreverfan

I wonder what the Falcons think....

RaginCajun83

That video was so fake

vpheughan

The NFL supplied their own solution now that "TD Celebrations" can be a choreographed show with a cast of thousands. Let the TD "Celebration Official" judge the best and the win goes to that team. Of course there will be the usual acceptance speeches to go along..........."Uh, I'd like to thank my drama coach" It's entertainment after all!