FanHouse

At the risk of incurring the wrath of Monday Morning Punter, I'd like to address, briefly, the NFL's overtime system, which Peter King reports could be tweaked by the league's Competition Committee.

The subject has made for a huge debate this week at Football Outsiders, and King got a ton of e-mail about it. The problem, of course, is that the winner of the coin toss has an advantage, and fans don't like seeing something as random as heads or tails having an impact on the outcome of a game.

My solution is simple: Auction off the yard line of the opening kickoff in overtime. The team that wins the toss only has an advantage because the overtime kickoff is at the 30-yard line. If it were at, say, the 50, the receiving team wouldn't get such good field position. If it were all the way at the other 30, every team would prefer to kick than to receive -- and they'd start overtime with an onside kick.

So all the Competition Committee has to do is this: Get rid of the coin toss before overtime and have the visiting team pick the yard line where the ball will be kicked. Then let the home team choose to kick or receive. The visiting team will choose a yard line (my guess is most teams would pick around the 50) that would be fair to both teams. And then overtime could begin without anyone having to talk about the coin toss.