Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen spoke on the fairness of overtime rules after the Bills lost to the Kansas City Chiefs without a chance on offense.
In college football, overtime can go on endlessly as long as each team responds with a corresponding score. While it’s fair to allow the opposing team to respond with a potential score, the excessive overtimes do have a drawback: teams could go on for, say, seven overtime periods before one team emerges victorious.
NFL fans (and even teams) have long campaigned for such rules to be put in place in the NFL, which has much stricter overtime rules that require more strategy. A strong offense may want the ball first to score a quick touchdown, while a stalwart defense may want to defend first so they’ll only need a field goal to clinch victory.
The Chiefs were instantly successful in overtime this weekend, defeating the Buffalo Bills without ever giving them a chance on offense. With the way the game was going, the Bills could have also scored a touchdown had they gotten a chance — if only the rules were different.
Despite the negative outcome for his team, Bills quarterback Josh Allen didn’t blame their loss on overtime being unfair. Allen imagined that if the Bills had gotten the ball and scored first, they’d be just as satisfied with the overtime system.
“The rules are what they are, and I can’t complain about that ’cause if it was the other way around, we’d be celebrating, too,” Allen said. “So, it is what it is at this point. We didn’t make enough plays tonight.”
Josh Allen accepts playoff loss instead of blaming overtime rules
In a brutal playoff loss, some quarterbacks might try to shift blame. Dak Prescott endorsed throwing trash at referees, while Aaron Rodgers promptly threw the Packers special teams unit under the bus despite his consistent failure to convert third downs.
Allen’s response demonstrates poise and leadership in a difficult moment, especially when it is easy to imagine an NFL world where the overtime rules were a little different.
In fact, it was the Kansas City Chiefs who proposed changing the overtime rules in 2019 after they lost to the New England Patriots in overtime during the 2019 AFC Championship.
If the Chiefs had gotten their way then, perhaps it would have been the other way around for the Bills after all.
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