There’s a large group of football fans — and not just in western New York — who believe Josh Allen and the Bills should have had a chance to touch the ball Sunday night in the NFL divisional round.
If the Kansas City Chiefs got their way just a few years ago, that’s exactly what would have happened. Alas, Patrick Mahomes and the KC offense marched right down the field and scored a walk-off touchdown in an unforgettable playoff win at Arrowhead Stadium.
While the Chiefs are moving on, let’s jump into the time machine and travel back to 2019. Andy Reid’s team found itself playing the role of Buffalo in the AFC Championship Game when Tom Brady and the New England Patriots’ game of keep-away sent them back to the Super Bowl while the KC offense watched helplessly from the sideline as the game ended.
That effectively led the Chiefs to propose new overtime rules to the NFL, with obviously the biggest change being both teams get a chance to possess the ball in overtime.
Here’s a quick summation of that 2019 proposal from the NFL Operations website.
” … amend Rule 16 to (1) allow both teams the opportunity to possess the ball at least one time in overtime, even if the first team to possess the ball in overtime scores a touchdown; (2) eliminate overtime for preseason; and (3) eliminate overtime coin toss so that winner of initial coin toss to begin game may choose whether to kick or receive, or which goal to defend.”
That’s some big full-circle energy there, even calling to eliminate the overtime coin toss, an event Sunday night that might ultimately play a huge role in the directions of these teams moving forward.
However, unfortunately for the Chiefs at the time and now fortunately for the Chiefs at this time, the proposal didn’t get enough votes to pass. At the time, it wasn’t much of a surprise for KC to lose the proposal, but it sure would have made things interesting Sunday night had Kansas City got its way.
Now, we’ll wait to see if there’s a renewed push for change with NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport saying Monday morning the conversation might be revisited this offseason.
