Know what the biggest play of Super Bowl LI was?
It wasn’t the fumble-sack of Matt Ryan that set up a Patriots touchdown, cutting the score to 28-20 with 5:56 left in the game. (Why were they throwing a pass on third-and-one with a 16-point lead instead of running the ball? No one knows.)
It wasn’t even the sack of Ryan when the Falcons had the ball at the Patriots' 22-yard line with 4½ minutes left. Nor was it the holding call on the next play that forced them to punt. (Why were they passing instead of running the ball to drain the clock and set up a field goal that would have iced the game? No one knows.)
It wasn’t even the miracle tip-catch by Julian Edelman.
The biggest play of the night was the coin toss heading into overtime. New England's special teams captain, Matthew Slater, called "heads."
The Patriots, continuing their second-half momentum, won the toss and quickly marched down the field for a touchdown. Game over. The Falcons' offense never even got on the field.
Why does the NFL insist on clinging to overtime rules that place so much importance on the luck of a coin toss?
Yes, the league tweaked the rules a few years ago, but didn’t go far enough. In a 2010 playoff game between the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings, the Saints won the coin toss and kicked a field goal on their first possession. It struck many as unfair and anticlimactic that the Vikings, with no less than Brett Favre at quarterback, never had a chance to respond. That off-season the NFL changed the rules — both teams would be given possession of the ball at least once in overtime unless the first possession resulted in a touchdown (not a field goal); if there is still a tie after that, then the first team to score wins.
Since then, six playoff games have been decided in overtime, and the winner of the coin toss won all of them. During the regular season, the team that wins the coin toss wins about 54 percent of overtime games, but its importance in the playoffs is even more pronounced. Unlike the regular season, no game can end in a tie, and a loss doesn’t mean the end of the season, so the strategy is different.
As I wrote in a January 2015 column, what other sport doesn’t give both teams an equal opportunity to win a game that is tied at the end of regulation play. In the knockout rounds of the World Cup, soccer uses a combination of extra time and shootouts. Tennis plays extra games and, if necessary, a tiebreaker system that awards an equal number of serves. The NBA plays an extra five minutes and starts with a jump ball, not a coin toss. Hockey uses a combination of an extra period and a shootout — and begins with an equal-opportunity face-off, not a coin toss. Major League Baseball gives both teams an equal number of innings on offense.
If the NBA wanted to copy the NFL format for overtime, overtime games would stop after the first 3-point field goal.
It’s not as if there isn’t a perfectly good overtime model out there that is proven and equitable. College football is the most messed up sport on the planet, but the game did create a good overtime system. It begins with a coin toss, but each team is given an equal number of possessions, starting at the 25-yard line. If the game is still tied after the first possession, they are each given a second possession and a third possession and so on until a winner is determined.
As great as Super Bowl LI was, it could have been better. Imagine the drama if the Falcons had been given a chance to answer the Patriots’ score. What would Julio Jones, Devonta Freeman and Ryan done with such an opportunity? It would have been entertaining and, more importantly, fair.