This Just In...
Kevin Fischer is an award-winning veteran broadcaster who has been seen and heard on Milwaukee TV and radio stations for nearly three decades.
Kevin, who is a legislative aide to state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), can be seen offering his views on the news on the public affairs program, “InterCHANGE,” on Milwaukee Public Television Channel 10, and heard filling in on Newstalk 1130 WISN. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their baby daughter, Kyla Audrey, in Franklin.
OT in the NFL
By Kevin Fischer
Sunday, Dec 2 2007, 07:00 AM
Everyone remembers Green Bay’s victory over the Broncos in Denver earlier this season.
Who could forget it?
Brett Favre’s bomb came on the first play from scrimmage in overtime. The Packers had won the toss, did what every team does that wins the toss before OT (elected to receive) and immediately scored. Game over.
The Broncos got burned in another overtime game last Sunday against the Bears in Chicago.
The Bears won the toss, took the football, and less than four minutes later walked off the field after a game-winning field goal.
Thrilling games if you’re the winners. Heartbreaking if you’re the losers.
In the National Football League, overtime games are settled by sudden death. The first team to score wins. If the other team never gets the ball, tough.
Winning the coin toss is simply a matter of luck, but it’s critical. As Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman notes:
“In regular-season games from 1974 through 2006, the NFL reports, the winner of the toss has won 53 percent of the games, the loser has won 43 percent, and 4 percent have ended in ties. Fully 29 percent of the games have ended on the first possession. Last season, of 11 overtime games, the team winning the coin toss won seven, or 64 percent. In five games -- 45 percent -- the coin-toss champ won on its first possession. The team losing the coin toss had only a little better than an even chance of getting the ball.”
In college football, the cont toss winner decides whether to go first or second on offense. The team with the football starts at the opponent’s 25-yard line. The team going second would have the advantage because it knows what it must do to either tie or win the game.
Chapman writes, “In the last six years, according to a study by scholars Peter A. Rosen of the University of Evansville and Rick L. Wilson of Oklahoma State University, coin-toss winners have won only 49 percent of the games.”
Chapman makes an interesting case that the NFL, the only sports organization to use sudden death, is being extremely unfair.
“Imagine an extra-inning baseball game decided by this sudden-death approach: The visiting team bats in the top of the 10th inning, gets a run and everyone goes home. Imagine an NBA game in which one team is given the ball at the start of overtime and immediately hits a shot to end the game. Fans would be sputtering with rage and incomprehension. “
He’s got a point.
Shouldn’t the team that’s scored upon in overtime receive a kickoff and have one last drive to try to score before the game is officially over?
Tell me that wouldn’t be exciting.
