[over the mountain]

couple of points:

1) if team A tries an onside kick to start the OT, if team B recovers the ball, all team B needs to do is kick a field goal. the new rule only gives you the opportunity to posess the ball. you waived that opportunity by taking your chance on an on-side kick.

2) rex ryan said if he won the coin flip in OT he would:

kick off, have his D get a stop, then go down the field and kick a field goal for the win. this may very well be the best coaching strategy i have heard re. the new OT rules.

3) that article linked either in this thread or the old one really did a fine job of trying to explain a complex aspect of how this new rule actually does not give fair advantage to both teams. under the new rules, the team that gets the ball second on offense (if first team kicks a fg) is at an advantage b/c they will have 4 downs at their disposal to get either a FG or TD compared to the original team that had to call plays under the traditional 3 downs to get 10 yds or punt scenario.

4) of the 27 or so playoff games that went into OT, only 3 would have been effected by this rule.

5) I believe (no solid source) that opposition to this new OT rule change came from 4 teams (1 owner bills? didnt want any change) who wanted to just add another quarter of play. to traditionalists, this represents the best way of not having the problem of this new rule changing the way coaches make play calls (see point 3 above).