The NFL’s amended overtime proposal, announced Tuesday, which will now allow every team to possess the ball in an extra period during the playoffs only, is the perfect encapsulation of the league as a whole. It’s the perfect snapshot of its stalled creativity and its opinion of both the consumer base and the player population that makes up its workforce.
The rule does nothing more than prevent a momentary surge of mass complaining from a jaded fan base upset that its faulty defense was scored on in a critical moment of a huge game. It prevents all of us from wondering aloud what would have happened if Josh Allen had gotten the ball back in January, or if Patrick Mahomes had gotten it back in January 2019 against the Patriots.