It’s time to revisit the statistics for the NFL overtime again. One of the more controversial rules in the NFL, which supposedly gives an edge to the team winning the coin toss. In this post I’ll take a look at the stats for the 2008 season, with the numbers being collected after 11 weeks into the season.
There have been 11 games which have gone into overtime. Of those 11 games, 9 have been won by a field goal, one by a touchdown after a blocked punt and one game went to a draw. We can clearly conclude that a field goal is the major decider for those games. When we look at the team that first got the ball and finally won the game, 7 times the winner of the coin toss has won the game.
But before we conclude that winning the coin toss gives an advantage, the times the game has been won on the first possession tells a different story. Of the 10 games resulting in a winner, only 5 of those games have been won on the first possession. So up until now, a team has a 50-50 chance of winning the game when going into overtime. And this would mean that the coin toss isn’t the deciding factor at all, at least not this season.
It sounds like if five out of 11 games are won on the first possession then there actually is a problem with the coin toss. How about this idea: No kickoff, the team that asks for worse field position starts with the ball.