Bears chairman George McCaskey gives his take on Overtime rules
It was announced yesterday that the NFL will make a change in the rules for the overtime period in the playoffs, effective immediately.
With the new rule, both teams will get a chance to have the ball before the game ends. This will help even the playing field because, as the offenses got better through the years, the coin flip has become so huge in deciding the outcome of the games. In fact, over the past decade, teams that won the overtime coin flip in the postseason had a record 10-2, including seven of those 10 wins coming on the opening possession.
This clearly shows how unfair the past rules were.
Bears chairman George McCaskey said his opinion yesterday to Dan Wiederer:
"There was a lot of good data presented about it. We had a good discussion internally about it, decided to hear what the conversation was in the meeting room, and I think it's a good result. The concern they had is that too often a flip of the coin had too much impact on the outcome of the game, particularly playoff games, and so this is designed to address that."
This implies that the Bears were in fact one of the 29 teams that voted for the rule to change! After all, it was clearly the right move to do, especially in the postseason.
