Football overtimes should be one possession each, starting at the 50-yard line, defensive scoring permitted. Break.

Make it 30 for high schools, 40 for sub-FCS college games.

“his voice and his mannerisms tell me that what I am watching matters”

Excuse me but his voice and mannerisms tell me what they have always told me; that Musberger assumes that what he’s describing matters…or else the network would have sent a lesser mortal there to describe it. He’s the worst play-by-play guy working in the big-time. He doesn’t appreciate the difference between play-by-play and analysis…or maybe he does but because paying attention is hard and bloviating is easy, he chooses to blur the line. When working baseball, because he doesn’t understand baseball, he reaches for football metaphors. When calling football, he treats every single play as though the greatest moment in sporting history is unfolding and that we’re blessed to have him there to tell us about it. He’s an ass. He’s a blow-hard. He’s a prima donna. I’ve been suffering with his insufferability since my youth in Chicago when he was just the local sports hack and hadn’t even begun doing the NBA with Bill Russell yet.

But hey, love your blog!

If you score a TD on the opening drive of OT, you win the game. However, if you only get a FG, then the other team should have a chance to match or tie.

if team A would choose to put the ball at their own 10, then team B is obviously going to choose offense every time since they only need 10 yards to score. no way in hell will any coach ever let a chance of that happening.

if team A chooses the opposite 10, then obviously team B will choose defense every time since it’s now 90 yards to score if they wanted the ball. and no way in hell team A’s coach would ever want to risk being pinned on their own 10 either, so it would take just a few games for coaches to release that the relative risk is the least if they just place at the 50.

No way in hell. If the home team put the ball on the 50 the visiting team would take it every time. If the home team put it on the 20 the visiting team would take it every time.

Where the ball would be placed would depend on how much the home team likes its defense against the visiting team’s offense, but I suspect generally it would be placed around the 10.

to be honest i have always argued to people that if a team has a problem with OT rules they should just get a better defense

BUT i was also always willing to admit that the idea of both teams getting one chance at a td would be fine by me (ie: 1 team scores, the other should be given one chance).

however, as someone suggested earlier, that creates an unfair advantage for the 2nd team since they can go for it on 4th down. i guess that’s not really THAT unfair, since they essentially HAVE to make the 4th down conversion, but still, i don’t like it anymore.

the kids and the cake suggestion is pretty awesome, but a little too weird to be implemented in mainstream football.

love the idea of forcing a team to go for a td on its first possession, but that’s also too weird for the nfl.

in the end, i changed my mind and i vote for a full OT quarter of 5 or 7 minutes. if still tied, it’s a tie game.

that would get rid of all the exciting OT wins though, which i like

joe, you should take all these OT suggestions and make a poll

In basketball, two points and the ball means four points. In football, two points and the ball means two points.