History
Further information: Overtime (sports)In 1974, the NFL instituted one fifteen-minute overtime period for all preseason and regular season games tied at the conclusion of four quarters of play. Any score in that overtime period resulted in sudden death, and the game immediately ended with the scoring team winning the game. A tied game resulted only when neither team scored in this single overtime period. The exception to this rule was that playoff games can never end in a tie, and thus multiple overtime periods could be required to decide a winner. However, only five NFL playoff games have gone to a second overtime, and none has ever gone to a third. The longest game in NFL playoff history took 22:40 of overtime to decide.
The regular-season overtime system was changed in 2012 to a "modified sudden death" system, in which each team is guaranteed a possession unless the team that received the ball upon overtime kickoff scored a touchdown. If a touchdown is not scored on the first possession, and after each team has had a possession the game is still tied, overtime continues in sudden-death mode until a score is made or the 15-minute period ends. Thus, if both teams make field goals on their respective first possessions of overtime, the game could still end as a tie if neither scores again..
Read more about this topic: List Of NFL Tied Games
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
—Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)