Sports Handicapping: NFL Overtime Rule Changes
- Filed under: Casinos
- Date: Aug 4,2010
There is lots of discussion within the media lately regarding possibly creating changes for the overtime rules in NFL games. In one group you will find people who really feel there is no crisis observing teams slug it out against each other for 60 minutes, simply to have what ought to function as most exciting part with the game get determined on a singular possession in which a team just has to maneuver the ball 30-40 yards which sets up a perfect winning Field Goal.
Roger Goodell, the current NFL commissioner believes that if you can’t win a game within the first sixty minutes, then you should have nothing to say about how the game gets decided after the hour, thus no sports handicapping problems. This thought is worthless in my opinion.
More concerning is what a change to the overtime rules might mean for gambling and sports handicapping reasons. We all know (even if they don’t want to admit it) that the NFL owes some of its popularity to the fact that it is the most heavily wagered on sport in America. So if the league went to some sort of OT system like the college game has, what would that do to the validity of lines that are put out on NFL games, particulary totals or over/unders?
Picture this, should you place a wager on a game that has a posted final of 42. Following regulation the score is tangled up at 14. Thus your bet for the game not making it under the posted final score looks fairly great, correct? Well let’s say the overtime structure was much more like it is in college exactly where both teams obtain the ball regardless of anything.
If both teams get a touch down in over time, you could have as many as 44 points. You could get another overtime situation with two field goals, then another one with a field goal to win the entire time. Now you just went from having excellent odds of the match ending on the total of thirty-one with the typical OT field goal to determine the outcome. But in this new situation, you now have a game where the total went up as high as 50+ all in a time period that is meant to be what you use when you have no time left on the regulation clock.
Having said all this, I want to go on the record for two things. 1) the overtime system is broken as it stands now. When you have the toss of the coin become more important than anyone on the field, then you have a serious problem. Odds show that the winner of the coin toss in the NFL overtimes wins the game sixty percent of the time! Actually, more than thirty percent of the time the team that loses the flip has never even touched the ball.
When it comes to sports handicapping, I may allow it to be similar to the rules for soccer when it comes to gambling. In soccer matches, when there is a strong chance of OT or penalty kicks, the line doesn’t even consider additional frames. This is why they use a “draw line”. So when the game is over, and ends with a tie after ninety minutes, the two teams might continue to play to determine a winner, but for betting reasons alone the game is done – pretty interesting, huh?
So I offer that the NFL should follow the same rule, especially when the over time program is changed. After an hour, the game is continued on for gambling reasons. There are no falsely adjusted scores which make a joke of the wagering lines. Although the rules should be adjusted to focus on the team members and not the toss of the coin, I think the gambling rules should also improve to stay on top of the changes.
Rich Allen is an expert in Sports Handicapping. His Sports Betting Professor Systems have sold over 250,000 units and cover all major sports. Download a FREE copy of The Sports Betting Insider’s Guide at: http://richallensports.com/sports-handicapping
