PALM BEACH, Fla. — The most thrilling game of a postseason that was packed with them was so good that no one wanted it to end.
When it did, the conclusion was slightly underwhelming.
The Chiefs and Bills traded punches all night, culminating in a flurry of 25 points over the final 1:54 to send the game to overtime. And after matching Patrick Mahomes at every turn, Bills quarterback Josh Allen was just another spectator after the Chiefs won the coin toss and drove 75 yards in four minutes for the game-winning touchdown to advance 42-36.
Introducing: the Josh Allen rule.
The NFL wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again, and owners voted overwhelmingly Tuesday on an overtime format that guarantees both teams a possession. It applies only to the playoffs this season, but it could be the first step toward becoming the standard for all games.
Each team will be assured a possession, and if one has the lead at that point, it wins. If the teams are still tied after each has had a shot, it goes to sudden death.
The proposal, submitted by the Colts and Eagles, passed by a 29-3 margin. It needed 24 votes to become official.
The overtime rules have been increasingly scrutinized as playoff games have gotten tighter. Six playoff games went to overtime over the last four seasons, while it happened just four times over the previous six.
Additionally, since change in 2012 when the league shifted from pure sudden death to the most recent format, there were seven instances in which a team lost a playoff game in overtime without getting a possession.
That’s obviously not perfect, but it’s fair enough.
The thing people seemed happy to ignore as they lobbied for this change in the wake of the Bills’ loss was that they had plenty of chances to win that game before it went to overtime, just as the Falcons did in Super Bowl LI when they blew a 28-3 lead against the Patriots and lost on the opening possession of overtime.
When the Bills took a 29-26 lead just after the two-minute warning, they immediately allowed the Chiefs to strike on a 64-yard touchdown pass to Tyreek Hill.
When they went up again, this time 36-33 with 13 seconds left on Allen’s fourth touchdown pass, they followed by giving up two long passes that set up the Chiefs’ tying field goal.
That was the real problem, not a rule that had been in place for a decade.
Bears coach Matt Eberflus woudn’t say which way he was leaning, but it’s likely he’d agree that the Bills missed their shot well before the overtime coin flip.
“It’s gonna be good either way, but I do know this: You have to play defense either way,” Eberflus said. “You’ve gotta stop them. I do know that.”
That part won’t change.
Even if the new rule would’ve been in place for the epic Bills-Chiefs game and Allen had kept his team alive by countering Mahomes with another touchdown, it would’ve gone to sudden death after that. The Bills’ defense would’ve needed a stop, and there was nothing to suggest it would’ve come through in that scenario after all the late-game failures that led them to that perilous position in the first place.
