To Kick or Receive: A Deep Dive into the National Football League New Playoff Overtime Rules

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The NFL has had a problem with overtimes for decades; the team with the first possession in overtime has had a distinct advantage due to the sudden death rules. In 2023, the NFL changed their playoff overtime rules with the aim for both teams to have an equal chance of winning regardless of who gets the ball first. An example under the new rules: Team A wins the coin toss and can elect to kick or receive. Suppose Team A decides to receive the ball. After Team A's attempt, Team B gets a turn regardless. If the score is tied, the first team to score wins, with Team A to receive. The first time this rule was implemented was in the 2024 Super Bowl, where the team who won the coin toss elected to receive and lost. This incited the masses to declare receiving first is the wrong decision. We feel this decision is more complex. To investigate whether it is better to receive the ball first or second given these new rules, we constructed a series of discrete-time Markov chain models to estimate the probability of winning for each team across a range of scoring probabilities. In particular, the Markov models allow Team B to change strategies in reaction to the outcome Team A's possession.

Sports

National Football League

Markov Chain Models 

Section on Statistics in Sports