Last February NFL fans witnessed something never seen before.
A lead change on the final play of the Super Bowl.
The reason? Super Bowl LVIII became the first playoff game under the league’s new overtime rules for the postseason, implemented for the 2022-2023 season. As we will review in a moment those changes guaranteed each team a chance to possess the football in overtime. After the San Francisco 49ers kicked a field goal, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs drove down the field and scored the game-winning touchdown on the final play of Super Bowl LVIII.
With the NFL playoffs about to get underway, we thought this was the perfect time to revisit the overtime rules for the postseason.
Because you never know when you will need to know them, and it pays to be prepared.
Why did the NFL change the overtime rules for the playoffs?
The AFC Divisional Round game between the Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills at the end of the 2021-2022 NFL season thrilled fans in a back-and-forth affair. Josh Allen and the Bills scored a go-ahead touchdown with just 13 seconds remaining in regulation, but that was still enough time for Mahomes to get Kansas City in range for a field goal to force overtime.
Despite the thrilling finish to regulation, the overtime ending left many fans unsettled.
Kansas City won the coin toss and went right down the field against an exhausted Bills defense, scoring a touchdown to advance to the AFC Championship Game. Under the overtime rules in place, all Allen and the Bills offense could do was watch.
In the weeks that followed, fans clamored for a different overtime format, and the NFL listened. The league’s owners approved a revised overtime format, guaranteeing that each team would have a possession in overtime. The new format was approved by a 29-3 vote.
What are the NFL overtime rules for the playoffs?
All playoff games that advance to overtime will follow these revised rules:
- If a game is tied at the end of regulation, the referee will toss a coin to determine which team will possess the ball first in overtime. The visiting team captain will call the toss.
- Both teams will have an opportunity to possess the football. This is the big change. Previously, as we saw in the 2022 AFC Divisional Round game between Kansas City and Buffalo, if the team that started with the football scored a touchdown, the game was over. Under the new rules, in that scenario, Buffalo would get a chance to match with a touchdown of their own, and if they did, the game would continue. Once both teams have had possession, the game then becomes sudden death. In addition, if the team that starts with possession scores and kicks the extra point to take a seven-point lead, the second team can win with a touchdown and a two-point conversion.
- If the score is still tied at the end of an overtime period — or if the second team’s initial possession is still in progress — the teams will play another overtime period. Play will continue regardless of how many overtime periods are needed for a winner to be determined.
- There will be a two-minute intermission between each overtime period. There will not be a halftime intermission after the second period.
- If the game remains tied after two overtime periods, there will be a second half. The captain who lost the first overtime coin toss will either choose to possess the ball or select which goal his team will defend unless the team that won the coin toss deferred that choice.
- Each team gets three timeouts during a half.
- The same timing rules that apply at the end of the second and fourth regulation periods also apply at the end of a second or fourth overtime period.
- If there is still no winner at the end of a fourth overtime period, there will be a third coin toss, and play will continue until a winner is declared.
- There are no instant replay coach’s challenges; all reviews will be initiated by the replay official.
What happened in overtime of Super Bowl LVIII?
Last season’s Super Bowl gave fans their first look at the new playoff overtime rules in action. Months of debate over how teams might handle the situation were finally tested.
And many were left wondering if the 49ers were ready.
San Francisco won the coin toss, and made the decision to receive the kickoff, despite many theorizing that under the new rules it made more sense to defer. With both teams guaranteed a possession, knowing what you need to score to win the game offers a competitive advantage, similar to how teams in college want to start on defense in overtime, so they know what they need to do on offense to win.
Instead, the 49ers began on offense, and could only manage a field goal. That opened the door for the Chiefs to win the game on their guaranteed possession with a touchdown, which is exactly what they did.
Speaking after the game, San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan stated that the team had run through the various scenarios, and thought by starting on offense they would have the advantage if the game advanced to a third overtime possession, and sudden death.
“None of us have a ton of experience with it,” Shanahan said. “We went through all the analytics and talked to those guys. We decided it would be better getting the ball because if both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones to have a chance to go win it.”
The problem? The game never got to that third overtime.
What to watch this season?
The ending of Super Bowl LVIII has given teams one example of the new overtime rules in action.
As such, you might expect that should overtime come up in this season’s playoffs, teams will want to start on defense, given how the Super Bowl ended a year ago.
One scenario that has not been tested yet? The impact of the two-point conversion. After Super Bowl LVIII Kansas City indicated that if necessary, they would have gone for two at the end of their possession to try and win, rather than kick an extra point and extend the game to a third overtime possession.
Should overtime arise in this year’s playoffs, will the two-point conversion come into play?
I guess we will have to wait to find out.
