The 2019 AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs proved one thing: the NFL overtime rules need to be modified. 

Overtime was established in the NFL in 1974, and since that time there have only been two major rule changes. In 2012, NFL owners voted to modify the sudden death format of the extra time period so that the first team to possess the ball could not win on a field goal on the first possession. Then, in 2017, owners voted to reduced the overtime time limit from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. 

However, neither of these two rule changes addressed the two problems at hand: 

1) The overtime coin toss results in an unfair advantage for the team that correctly guesses heads or tails.

2) The NFL remains the only major professional sports league in the US where regular season games can end in a tie. 

Sunday night's AFC championship game between the Chiefs and the Patriots ended in a way that left fans and players wondering what could have been. The Patriots won the coin toss and marched right down the field and scored a touchdown, taking advantage of the archaic sudden death system and winning the game. But what would have happened if the Chiefs had won the toss? Patrick Mahomes has proven that he has the ability to lead his team in critical situations. Could he have potentially led his team on a game winning drive, just as Brady did? Unfortunately, due to the current NFL overtime rules, one of the most electrifying players of the 2018-2019 season did not even get to see the field in overtime. 

So, how can this issue be solved? Fortunately, college football has already figured this out. Remove the game clock entirely from overtime. Remove kickoffs, remove punts. Flip a coin. The coin-toss winner gets to decide if they want the ball first or if they want to play defense. Put the ball at the 25 yard line, 1st and 10. The first team on offense takes the field. They can either score a touchdown or a field goal, or turn the ball over. No matter the result of the first teams possession (unless it results in a turnover returned by the defense for a touchdown), the second team is allowed a chance to possess the ball. If the game is tied after the first overtime, then the game moves into a second overtime and continues until there is a winner. Full college rules can be found here (https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2018-08-19/how-does-college-football-overtime-work The college rules completely address the two problems with the NFL system. The overtime period is fair as each team gets a chance to possess the ball, and ties are completely removed from the game. 

The purpose of this petition is to draw awareness to the current problems with today's NFL overtime rules and to start the conversation regarding how to change them. NFL owners have an annual meeting in March where new rule changes are proposed and voted on. My hope is that at the 2019 meeting, revitalizing the overtime system will be topic of conversation.