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Pressing issues Preliminary indications suggest status quo most likelyPosted: Wednesday March 19, 2003 8:19 PM
Talk of adding more playoff teams and more possessions in overtime figure to dominate the discussion at next week’s NFL annual meeting in Phoenix. But in all likelihood, the message that will end up resonating the loudest among league owners is "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it." Why change anything, most within the league are expected to reason, when the statistical fallout of the 2002 season was overwhelmingly positive? After all, as the league’s competition committee co-chairman, Rich McKay, pointed out Wednesday, the new divisional realignment format worked almost flawlessly, helping advance the best teams to the postseason while creating memorable playoff chases, especially in the wild and woolly AFC. Also, total scoring was up last season (43.3 points per game, compared to 40.4 in 2001), as were touchdowns per game (4.96, the most since 1987). There were more games decided by seven points or fewer (49.2 percent) than any season since 1994, and the NFL set records for fourth-quarter comeback wins of at least 10 points (18) and total number of overtime games (25). What’s not to like? "From the committee’s standpoint, 2002 was an awfully good year for the league," McKay said. "It was one in which we can build off of."
Just don’t look for that building program to include either a tweaking of the league’s sudden-death overtime format -- in favor of going to a two-possession rule -- or an increase of the playoff field from 12 to 14 teams. While both issues will be discussed, debated and eventually voted upon by the full membership in Phoenix and both have their supporters, neither measure is expected to be adopted. Keep in mind that few, if any, rule changes occur in the NFL without the recommendation of the influential eight-man competition committee and its three-man coaching subcommittee. While both the overtime and expanded playoff field proposals are ideas whose time may very well come someday soon, the competition committee hasn’t embraced either one, meaning they have little chance of passage. The committee, McKay said, is split on the overtime issue and opposed to expanding the playoff field. Of the two headline proposals, give the overtime debate the better chance of passage, but the odds are still against the measure receiving the necessary 24 out of 32 votes. About half of the league’s head coaches seem in favor of leaving overtime as is, and owners generally defer to the wishes of their coaches when voting on on-field rule changes. "I couldn’t tell you a prediction whether it’ll be passed or not," McKay said of the overtime proposal, which was submitted by Kansas City. "It’s going to be close. But the history of our league tells us that with rules that have been in place this long [since 1974], it takes two or three years before they get changed. They don’t tend to happen the first year they get voted on." Here’s a quick summary of where the debate stands on both proposals:
"There is a concern statistically now that the first possession is becoming too much of an advantage," McKay said, adding that the success ratio of field-goal attempts of 50 yards or longer has improved dramatically since overtime was first adopted (from 13 percent in '74 to 51 or 52 percent today). "The reason is the kicking game, with the field goals and the drive starts versus where they were in the ‘70s. A game has a chance of ending on the first possession more than they did back then, and that’s making a lot of teams support the two-possession format." But there are unintended consequences to giving each team at least one overtime possession, before reverting to sudden death at that point. The most glaring, McKay said, is that it could increase the number of tie games, which was the original problem that sudden-death overtime sought to address. In the 10 seasons prior to 1974, there were 78 ties. In the first 10 seasons of overtime, there were only seven ties. Given that no one in the NFL is in favor of games without clear resolution, the creation of more ties is the largest potential stumbling block to changing overtime. One possible compromise? The league could choose to adopt a one or two-year change of the overtime rules, McKay said, allowing it to quickly deal with any unintended consequences that a modification might inspire.
McKay seemed to indicate Wednesday that there is little momentum to accelerate that timetable. "We discussed this very proposal probably two years ago, at the same time we discussed realignment," McKay said. "The feeling of the committee at that time, and I think the feeling of the membership at that time was that we would wait a couple years -- probably two at the minimum -- into the new divisional format before we tried to deal with the issues of playoff expansion or re-seeding of playoff teams. "I think the committee remains in the same position as we were then: Let’s give it two years. Let’s figure out if there are any inequities in the system, and then let’s see if it’s appropriate to expand the playoffs." There’s no urgency to act on the expanded playoff-field front because there was no 10-6 wild-card team that got shut out of the postseason in 2002 by the likes of an 8-8 division winner, as many had feared in the new eight-division format. The six teams with the best records in each conference, allowing for tiebreakers, went to the playoffs. Interestingly, New England, one of the proposal’s co-sponsors, would have made the playoffs at 9-7 if a seventh team had qualified from each conference. "Last year we felt it worked exactly as it should work," McKay said. "We felt there was no inequities that showed up. [So] I don’t think anybody is looking to change [the playoff format] yet." Next year might be a different story, of course. But if the NFL would go to a 14-team playoff field in 2004, you can be sure that some critics will decry that the achievement of making the playoffs has been cheapened. After all, that would mean that 44 percent of the league’s teams (14 of 32) would qualify for the postseason. But a quick review of history would reveal that from 1990-94, when the league had 28 teams with the current 12-team playoff field, a cool 43 percent of the NFL made the postseason. There was no real hue and cry then, so the proponents of such a change could rightly point out that the playoffs are merely keeping up with the rate of franchise expansion. Sure to be an issue next year when the debate about the size of the playoff field heats back up is the question of whether a seven-team format gives too much of an advantage to the conference’s top-seeded teams, which would be the only ones earning a first-round bye. "That is a tremendous advantage," McKay conceded. "But the converse argument is maybe that team earned it." Another rule change proposal that’s not expected to fly next week is Cleveland’s request to modify how the replay challenge system works. The Browns maintain that if a team is successful on a replay challenge, it should retain that challenge, providing more than the two challenges per game that are currently allowed. McKay and the competition committee aren't in support of that push, either, believing it would encourage teams to challenge plays that are not truly significant to the game’s outcome. With 2003 representing the third and final season of the current replay system’s three-year trial period, the time to make any adjustments to replay is 2004, the committee decreed. Overtime. The playoffs. Instant replay. Don’t look for anything but the status quo in 2003 regarding those high-profile topics. Remember, in the NFL, if it ain’t broke, they're not in the business of fixing it. Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com. |
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