I'm of the opinion everything stays the same except you must score something other than a FG to win. If the team the wins the flip goes down the field and scores a TD...then you didn't deserve to win anyway as TD's are scored on about 25% of normal possessions. The problem I have is when a team wins the toss ..gets one intermediate play and then kicks a 54 yrd FG to win.

The reason why the NFL hasn't changed it is because they don't want to admit that college nailed this years ago with their overtime system. This is just a league failing to admit they screwed this up years ago and simply presses on so they don't have to admit anything.

Both teams should get a possession.   If it ends in a tie after that then so be it.  At least its fair.

Or a double overtime!!! Ties are no fun!!!

Gotta agree with you here.  The NFL is arrogant (a lot of that is deserved) and doesn't want someone else to have the credit for something innovative and ground-breaking.  I think the NFL should just bite their tongue and establish a modified version of the collegiate overtime system, with the statistics built up in the overtime period(s) not counting as normal statistics.  I doubt it will happen anytime soon, but the league likes to have us believe that they are at least discussing a potential change.

Are you guys kidding me? Football games take long enough to play as it is. I really don't want to see a "both teams get possession" kind of game that extends football games to 5 hours long.

I'm old school. Sudden death is the way to do it. If you lose the coin toss, man up, play D and get the ball back. If not, then you deserve to lose. That's it.

You just said football games take long enough to play as it is?????  Blasphemy.  Five hour football game = WIN.

The college rule with it's ridiculous stat padding in OT is worse than the NFL.
Play D if you don't win the toss, or lose.

i have to agree with bludevil.  i'm in favor of sudden death even if my team doesn't benefit from it.  however, since my team (chargers) did the unthinkable and beat the networks' favorite son, peyton manning, the networks seem to think that something that has proven to work for the past 50 years doesn't work anymore.  if a team can play well on both sides of the ball, more often than not, they're going to be victorious in the end.  i think the powers that be have more important issues at hand, like making sure the officiating doesn't go the way of the nba.

But like MarkTheShark said... you don't even have to let them "march down the field". They can get one half-decent play, and be in FG position. It's a bit absurd, really.

I kinda like that one too...kinda like the college thing but only if the receiving team scores on it's first possession...

It'd be weird though: say the team that receives the OT kickoff concedes a safety? Would the game end?

I think the only thing that needs to be changed, is that the team that wins the coin flip (assuming that they want to choose) would get the ball on their 20 yard line.     No kickoff, just take the ball on their own 20.     Continue play like it is now - sudden death, 2 time-outs, etc., etc., etc.

Leave the college OT game to college - let's put more emphasis on every play....and not have the attitude of "Oh well, so I didn't guard or tackle that guy.....but we get the ball now and if/when we score we'll be even again"     Nope !     Make each play count.     First team to score wins baby !

Just start the OT on the 20............and go from there !

I'm of two trains of thought on this.

On the one hand, the college OT is mad entertainment.  If it weren't for that, the only memories people would have of Byron Leftwich would be that he was carried down the field with a busted ankle.  Some of the most exciting bowl games have been due to OT.  If it weren't for OT, Boise State wouldn't have been Cinderella against OU.  If it weren't for OT, the Ole Miss/Arkansas game wouldn't be anywhere near the record books (7 OTs?  Insanity!).  The NCAA doesn't get much right, but they hit this nail right on the head.

On the other hand, the NFL's OT equals sudden death.  Win the toss, you got a chance to win.  If not, then who knows what can happen?  The most exciting NFL OT game that comes to mind for me was in 2006, when Jacksonville paid a visit to Jack Kent Cooke Stadium (I refuse to call it FedExField - Dan Snyder can fly a kite in a thunderstorm with gasoline underwear) when Mark Brunell fired a laser to Santana Moss, who streaked down the sidelines to score the game winner.  Had we had the college OT scenario, that wouldn't happen.

What I'd like to see is a combination of the two.  That would work with one change: one 15 minute quarter, play it to completion, and whoever scores the most wins.  If they want to cut down on the length of the games (why would they?!), cut out the TV time outs.

The reason it hasn't changed is because it works. The team who receives the ball first does not statistically have a huge win advantage over the team on Defense first. .....It is simple really....PLAY DEFENSE

I second BlazerJoe's comment.  The college overtime is silly -- why end a football game with some sort of cheesy offensive drill?  Play a full 10, 12, or 15 minute overtime.  If there's a winner, so be it.  If not, it's a tie.  In the playoffs, play the 10, 12, or 15 minute quarter, then go into sudden death after that.  I've thought about this a little . . .

Oh hell...there's nothing wrong with a tie.  If you can't solve the game in 60 minutes (or 4 hours according to the wives) then just let it alone.  Forget all this posturing about what to do with overtime...just drop it all together.

It is the college rule that is completely ridiculous and needs to be changed.  The NFL method, while arbitrary, works much better.  The only time you hear anyone complain about it is when some team plays an underwhelming game (usually against an inferior opponent), loses the toss, then loses by the field goal.  There is a simple solution - win in regulation...or even better, play defense in OT.  The notion that both teams need a possession or that you have to win by 6 are just as arbitrary as the current system and will lead to just as much complaining if implemented. 

I am fine with it the way it is, but if they DID change it, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But good lord, the stat padding would be insane.

what if they did a coin toss first. lets say team 1 won it. they would get 5 or 10 minutes to try and score. if they did, the game would be over. if they didn't, the ball would go to team 2, who would also have 5 or 10 minutes to score. if they score, they win. if they don't, it goes back to team 1, and so on.

*when you get the ball on the possession switch, you have to receive a kickoff.*

Typical front office.  The perfect model of American business.  They won't admit something's amiss until it's too late.  Just look at steroids, maple bats, review systems... you name it.

Soccer used to use a similar "golden goal" system where the first to strike won the match.  Hockey still does.  But it doesn't lend itself to a game like this where you can go a couple yards and just kick a field goal?  That's arbitrary.  Why reward a team for merely getting the luck of the coin?  This may not have been a problem in the past, but as kickers continue to make it from further and further out, defenses don't have much to work with.  You don't even get to have your offense take the field?  Good lord.  This was the lesser of two systems in soccer, where a lesser team could reserve itself for OT and suddenly win on a single shot - a defensive miscue or luck, possibly - and this is a sport where you have all your players on the field.  It doesn't make sense when you've got half your team out there playing a different role than the opposition.

Field goals in general are cheesy.  I feel cheesy when a team just wins it at the end of regulation with one... you can guess how OT is.  I feel ripped off.  It's anticlimatic, and sometimes I don't feel confident that the better team won.  As a fan I hate it that a team can play conservatively, content to get into a certain range.  Just play defense?  Yes, of course, play defense, but even a fantastic defense isn't always gonna hold a team.  It doesn't share the same dynamics as hockey or soccer... so what we're left with is something tantamount to a basketball team getting a win simply because they happened to shoot the first basket.  Would you not say that kicking a field goal is easier than scoring a goal in hockey or soccer?

The college system, though, never made sense to me either.  I could never see the rationale for placing a team at an arbitrary distance.  Talk about more onus on the defense in an already offensively-minded sport.  Although it certainly wins me over in terms of sheer excitement, it either devolves into stat-padding or more field-goal kicking.  But at least it forces the offense to take more risks!

I can't really see why anyone would seriously endorse the old system.  I'm a purist - about as pure as they come - and I can see this needs to change.  If anything, the game would be better - purer if you will.  The first version of a game is not necessarily the right one.  I'll mourn the loss of tradition alongside you, but anything that violates the spirit of the game - fairness, fan experience - must change.  Or else we'll be stuck hearing these controversies every year as they inevitably happen.  I'm willing to pay the price in terms of game length for that to happen.

What we need is a combination of the two extremes.  For a while I was thinking a set period of time where you play as you normally would similar to what's used in sports like hockey and soccer, but I can already see the flaws left on the table.  Perhaps what we need to do is give each side a possession each, barring defensive miscues, off of a punt.  In order to avoid padding the stats of the kickers, perhaps we need to go as far as eliminating them completely during overtime.  We can always go back into sudden death after x number of possessions or x number of minutes.  In a non-playoff situation, we can even make use of ties, although I hate them worse than anything.

I personally wouldn't mind a greater time investment or a so-called slower pace, because to me this sport is already both a time investment and slow-paced.  That's how we play the game.

A tie? wrong football.