Hockey shootouts rule! I say, we get rid of overtime and get straight to the jelly. Better yet, let’s flip a loonie to see which team shoots and which team shall tend goal. One chance to score and one chance to save the day. WINNER… TAKES… ALL!
Unfair you say? Misrepresentative you cry? Well, this is the on-ice equivalent of the NFL’s current overtime rules. Actually, if you really wanna get nitty-gritty about it, this hockey hypothetical is still a less ridiculous analog. If you shortened the NHL season to sixteen games and introduced single game elimination during the playoffs, then perhaps my suggestion would be as tragic an OT strategy. While the length of the season, and the non-series approach to the post are definitely virtues of the NFL, these attributes do not match well with a good run-back, a thirty-yard drive and a swift kick for the instant win.
The game of the football does not lend itself well to sudden death. Quite simply, there is more than one way to score and a different number of points awarded for each. During regulation, six points on the board gives you a better chance of winning the game than three (Thanks Madden). Thus, strategizing ensues: Do we go for it? Do we play it safe and put up some points? How far ahead do we need to be? How far behind are we? Two scores? One score? And that’s fuckin’ football! It’s laminated play sheets, black and white aerial photos, crazy moose antler audibles and dudes in the booth. The shit’s chess it ain’t checkers! (Thanks Denzel.) But with sudden death OT, you take your touchdowns, your field goals, your extra points, even your safeties, and you chop’em all up, throw them in a pot and boil them down to just a score.
Right now, all you NFL apologetic types are muttering the same thing, “defense wins games.” Well, in hockey they have the equivalent sort of clichéd, sports-talk-radio make-my-fucking-ears-bleed sound bite garbage: “Goaltending wins games.” And that doesn’t justify putting a team’s entire season on the back of its man in net.
Like any league, the NFL has issues. Earlier this month, my fellow R2AK writer A.T. gave us a rundown of the five things he would change about the NFL. With no mention of overtime?! (No mention of the Detroit Lions either – I’d say they’re a top five issue…) C’mon A.T., the overtime rule is a disgusting mole on the otherwise pretty face of the NFL. If she had it removed, she would be beautiful.
–A. Vice
