Online Betting – Don’t Forget about the New Playoff Overtime Rule

Online Betting – Don’t Forget about the New Playoff Overtime Rule.  When you are watching the NFL playoffs this weekend and getting ready for your online betting action don’t forget about the new overtime rules.  It is not necessarily sudden death anymore.  Let’s review the new overtime rules and what impact they might have on your Internet betting at the Sbg sportsbook.

New Rules
You might have totally forgotten that in the offseason the NFL changed the overtime rules for the playoffs.  The league decided they didn’t want a team that won the coin toss to go down and kick a field goal and win.  Now if a team kicks a field goal on the first possession of overtime the other team gets a possession. If that trailing team kicks a field goal the game continues with the sudden death format but if they score a TD then they win. If a team wins the coin toss and scores a TD on their first possession then the game is also over. It will make for some interesting decisions when teams get into field goal range and face a fourth down. No longer will it be an automatic decision to kick the field goal. There will also be some interesting decisions for the team that is trailing by a field goal in overtime.

Blame the Media
You can blame the media for this stupid rule change. The media overreacted last year to the Vikings losing to the Saints in overtime.  The Saints won the coin toss and then went down and kicked the game winning field goal to beat Minnesota in the NFC Championship game.  Everyone overreacted to that game and the NFL changed the rule.  Had the NFL really done the research they would have found that the team that wins the coin toss doesn’t always win the game. You can also blame Brett Favre. If he had not thrown another stupid interception then the Vikings probably would have won the game in regulation and we wouldn’t be talking about a new overtime rule.

Online Betting Effect
There is really no way to predict when overtime occurs so you won’t see the NFL odds being adjusted.  The only thing to keep in mind is that when a game goes into overtime it may not end as soon as it did in the past.