One of the most entertaining guests during the debut of the “Manning Cast” was Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, who joined Eli and Peyton Manning during the fourth quarter of the Raiders‘ wild 33-27 win over the Ravens on Monday night.
If you’re not familiar with the Manning Cast, it’s an alternative broadcast for “Monday Night Football” that features the Manning brothers talking about the game on ESPN2. The first show aired on Monday and Wilson was the final guest as he joined the brothers for the fourth quarter and overtime.
Although the Seahawks quarterback can be known for being bland during interviews, he was quite lively during his time with the Manning brothers. Not only was he talkative, but once the game went to overtime, he revealed just how much he hates the current rules for the NFL‘s extra period.
Wilson’s biggest problem is that he hates ties.
“This thing drives me crazy,” Wilson said. “We go into overtime and play the 10 minutes, and if no one scores, we all end in a tie and everyone goes home? How terrible is that?”
To prevent ties from happening, Wilson proposed a wild idea that I actually liked a lot.
“I’ve got a crazy idea,” Wilson said. “Imagine this right here. Imagine we went through this whole thing, this 10-minute overtime or whatever, nobody scores, so you come back in for another coin toss. Do the coin toss. Let’s just say the game [is still tied]. The Raiders come out for a second coin toss and they win it, so now you get to choose, you get one kick: Are you going to kick it or are they going to kick It? You have to kick it from the 35.”
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Basically, what Wilson is proposing is that the game would come down to a field goal. Under Wilson’s rule, the team that wins the coin toss would get to choose whether to try a 53-yard field goal (Snapped from the 35-yard line). If they don’t want to try it, they could force the other team to attempt the kick. Once the kicking team is decided, the rules would be simple: If the kicker makes the field goal, his team wins. If the kicker misses it, then the other team wins.
Wilson must be watching a lot of soccer because this would be similar to ending a game on penalty kicks. Now, before you bash Wilson for his idea, keep in mind, this would only be used if neither team is able to score during overtime, which means it would only have an impact on a very small amount of games.
As a matter of fact, over the past four years, Wilson’s kick would have only been used four times, which is an average of once per year. However, those four kicks would definitely have provided some high drama.
Not only do I love Wilson’s idea, but I actually have a way to make it even better with something that would be called the “field goal gamble.” If the overtime ends in a tie, there would be a second coin toss (as Wilson suggested). The winner of the coin toss would then pick a distance for a field goal that would decide the game. The twist here is that the loser of the coin toss would pick which team has to attempt the kick.
If the loser of the coin toss isn’t comfortable with their kicking situation, they could have the other team try the kick. This would also prevent the coin toss winner from picking a 70-yard field goal, since they know there’s a chance that their kicker could be the one who ends up attempting the kick.
If my rule had been in place on Monday, it would have gone like this (Assuming the Raiders and Ravens were still tied after overtime):
- Raiders win coin toss, choose their field goal distance as 60 yards.
- Ravens have Justin Tucker so they feel comfortable letting him kick that.
- If Tucker makes it, the Ravens win. If Tucker misses, the Raiders win.
One note here: If the Ravens didn’t have Tucker and instead had a kicker who had no chance of hitting a 60-yarder, then they could make the Raiders try the kick. At that point, the same rules apply: If the Raiders make it, they win. If they miss it, the Ravens win.
If anyone from the NFL is reading, please combine Wilson’s proposal with my proposal and make this happen ASAP.
