Sudden death's slow death?

My blog's name took a minor blow today when the NFL voted 28-4 to tweak the overtime rules for postseason games. ProFootballTalk.com has a good synopsis of the change, but basically, the team that receives the opening kickoff in overtime cannot win with a field goal on its first drive.

I think the change is unnecessary for many reasons, and I expect the new rule to create mostly unforeseen consequences. That's because the probability of a playoff game ending on a first-possession field goal is already extremely low.

Let's take a look at the numbers. There have been 460 NFL postseason games. Twenty-seven ended in overtime since the league introduced sudden death in 1941. Five ended on the first possession of overtime. Three ended on first-possession field goals. The first two were 23- and 26-yard kicks attempted after driving the length of the field. In almost 70 years, the NFL's new rule would have strongly affected one game (!) -- there is little coincidence it was last year's NFC Championship, when New Orleans won on a 40-yard field goal.

Three out of 460 postseason games (0.65 percent) were won on a first-possession field goal. And for all we know, even these games might have ended with the same score under the new rule -- if the losing team failed to score on its ensuing possession. Overreaction because of the recency effect, anyone?

Too be fair, all three of the postseason games retroactively "affected" by this new rule happened within the last decade. There were three overtime playoff games in the first 25 years, eight in the next 25 years, and 16 in the most recent 19 years. It's pretty easy to explain that trend, though, because the number of playoff games per year has increased from one to three to five to nine to 11.

NFL owners will likely vote in May about extending the new rule to the regular season (which is not expected to pass), and I hope they are not waiting to observe how it tangibly works in the postseason -- that could be a while.