The Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs took part in one of the best playoff battles in NFL history two years ago. Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes traded touchdowns in the fourth quarter after the two-minute warning, before Mahomes ran a miraculous drive with 13 seconds remaining to get the Chiefs into field goal range. Harrison Butker hit a field goal to send the game into overtime, and the Chiefs would go on to win the game on the first possession of overtime when Mahomes found Kelce in the back of the end zone for an eight-yard touchdown.
After Allen's 19-yard touchdown pass that put the Bills ahead with 13 seconds left, Buffalo's offense never touched the ball again. The Bills and Chiefs will renew their rivalry in the Divisional round of the 2024 NFL playoffs, but the rules have changed since their last postseason meeting. In the event this game, or any of the other three, go to overtime, let's review the new rule changes that the league has implemented for their overtime postseason matchups.
NFL's new playoff overtime rules
If there is overtime in an NFL playoff game, there will still be a coin toss, with the road team choosing either heads or tails. The winning team will have the option to kick off or receive the ball.
The new wrinkle is that both teams will have an opportunity to possess the ball in overtime. The previous rule stated that the game would end if the team that had the ball first scored a touchdown. The new format will allow both teams to get a chance to score, and if the score is tied after each team has a possession in overtime, then the game turns into the next score wins, also known as sudden death.
The only way for a team to win on the first drive in overtime with these new rules is if their defense forces a safety. If the kicking team to start overtime scores a safety on the receiving team's initial possession, the kicking team is the winner. This is because, by the rule of a safety, the kickoff team would score two points and get the ball back.
There will be no coaches' challenges in overtime. The replay official will be the one to initiate any reviews. Also, each team will get three timeouts for every two overtime periods.
In the regular season, games can end in a tie, but that isn't the case in the playoffs. Instead of a ten-minute overtime period like the regular season, playoff overtimes are 15 minutes long. If the score is tied after 15 minutes, there will be another 15-minute period. The second overtime will start where the first overtime ended, with the team who possesses the ball on the same yard line. And again, since there are no ties in the playoffs, this will go on for as many periods as needed before a winner is crowned.
The reason the NFL changed their overtime playoff rules
There were plenty of happy people in Kansas City when the Chiefs won their 2022 playoff thriller against the Bills. However, there were just as many upset fans in Buffalo. They didn't feel it was fair that the Bills didn't get an opportunity to avenge the Chiefs' comeback. In college football, the opposing team always has another chance to come back or win the game after they get scored on. It felt like the NFL went too far the other way with their overtime rules, so the league found a happy medium.
In 12 overtime games from 2010 to 2022, the team that won the coin toss won on their first possession seven times. Overall, the coin toss winners were 10-2. That means a team's fate was decided by a coin flip on seven of 12 occasions. After seven months of battling, to have your season ended by a game of chance was something that didn't sit right with owners.
The Philadelphia Eagles and Indianapolis Colts proposed the updated rules before the 2023 season. The rule change passed by a vote of 29-3 from NFL owners. This will be the second year that the new rules are in place. Last year, there were no games that went to overtime. However, would it be a surprise if the Chiefs and Bills went there again?
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