Overtime Change Studied

You don’t have to draw up a Jon Gruden offense or a Bill Parcells defense to improve your chances of winning an NFL game in overtime.

Just win the coin flip.

Since 1994, 58.9% of the teams that won the overtime coin flip won the game. In a league that prides itself on competitive balance, that’s shockingly skewed. A record 25 games were decided in overtime last season.

In an effort to make things more nearly fair, team owners will consider altering the overtime format when they get together in Phoenix next week for their annual meetings. The proposal on the table would give each team at least one possession in overtime instead of the current sudden-death format.

The 32 owners also will discuss expanding the playoff field from six to seven teams for each conference, a change in the instant-replay challenge system, potential Super Bowl sites, and the league’s policy of awarding $150-million loans for stadium construction. The future of the NFL in Los Angeles, specifically the Rose Bowl, also will be discussed, although there will be no official presentation.

Tampa Bay General Manager Rich McKay, co-chair of the Competition Committee, said itsmembers were split on a two-possession overtime format and hinted it probably would not gain approval for next season.

“The history of our league tells us that rules that have been in place this long take two or three years before they get changed,” McKay said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. “They don’t tend to happen in the first year something is voted upon.”

Drawbacks to the two-possession plan are that overtime games would last longer and would result in more ties.

The proposal to expand the playoffs, an idea endorsed by New England and Kansas City, would mean that only the No. 1 seed from each conference would get a first-round bye. The rest of the teams would play wild-card games. The proposal will be voted upon by next Wednesday unless it is taken off the table, although McKay said he is not in favor of it.

Other issues:

* Cleveland has proposed changing the instant-replay system to allow coaches who successfully challenge a call to get that challenge back so it can be used later in the game. The current format gives coaches two challenges a game.

McKay said the Competition Committee was not in favor of “tinkering” with the replay system this season, however, and any changes should take place next year, when the entire format is to be studied.

“When we passed this rule ... the purpose was to correct the obvious error on the big plays,” McKay said. “The one thing we did not want to do is encourage challenges.”

* Owners will have preliminary discussions about the site of the Super Bowl in February 2007, which has yet to be determined. Joe Browne, an NFL vice president, said the league is angling for a warm-weather locale for that game, preferably in Florida. He said a renovated Rose Bowl was probably not a candidate but would be in play for a subsequent Super Bowl.

* The finance and stadium committees have recommended a one-year extension of the “G-3” loan program, which has been integral to stadium development in the last decade. It has contributed $650 million in league funds to projects but is set to expire at the end of the month. A G-3 loan is one of the cornerstones in the financing plan to rebuild the Rose Bowl.