Coolong: Changing OT Rule has Many Layers

it's great to be here as always I hope uh hope things are are well over in your part of the world so far so good my friend and uh so let's talk about Keith Butler uh near the end dick labau wasn't calling defenses near the end Keith Butler wasn't either yeah it it's this opens up a lot of things that have been happening for a while and it's not necessarily uh public facing information and it's not even necessarily that it's a big deal one way or another but um a head coach certainly one who's been around for a long time uh in this case let's take Shawn pton Shawn pton uh is retiring or quitting literally as we're talking now right Sha pton has been calling plays in New Orleans for a very long time that that's not a secret it's not something they necessarily divulge or dive into but uh Mike Tomlin has been as successful as Payton uh he is more of a defensive uh uh coach and has been he took that role over um probably after dick leau left because Dick leau is a legend and no offense but Keith Butler is not Tomlin is the one who was held to a certain standard he's the one who was paid a lot more money and the coordinators tend to report to the head coaches so Tomlin um if you want to call it this pulling Rank and saying I'm going to call the defense on a first year coordinator really should shouldn't be seen as all that much of a surprise it kind of depends on uh who the coach is and how they want to do things but it's it's not out of the out of the ordinary at all to have coordinators who don't call plays in the NFL a lot of them don't especially with like the veteran coaches you're going to see that pretty often it's not all the time but it's not a surprise that Mike Tomlin has been calling defensive plays um what I would challenge people with is is asking how much that really matters if tomin was the defensive coordinator why is Keith Butler there at all he obviously was he's obviously being paid he must have some role right instead of giving us his his wonderful half an hour long press conferences every week there's something they expect him to do he is putting together all of the defense based on what they have um he is is making sure the position groups know what the bigger picture is what they're trying to accomplish he's aware of the depth at every position he has to know all that stuff so he can draw up what's there what they're going to do and all of this stuff is decided in the off season they don't do it week to week you don't just change your defense week to week you have to have stuff that you've practiced that you are aware of that you're comfortable with it's not as easy as you know taking a 700 page Playbook and scrolling to a page and and throwing your finger on it you have to know what you're up against but to get to that point you need to do a lot of work that's what the coordinator is doing most of the time Tomlin is working in concert with Butler and to some degree with Matt Canada as well to go over what they want to do for each opponent during the season in the offseason it's what we're good at what we want to build strategically how we want to improve this team what we're going to do so they're they're laying the foundation for all of that they had coaches involved every step of the way of both of those processes and to to suggest otherwise is a fundamental misunderstanding of of what NFL teams do and how they are structured so it it's the only the only thing here in my mind is the the reveal which wasn't intentional and was not done by a current Steelers employee that Mike tomin was calling plays that's something that frankly we've known about but it's not something you you talk about openly because it just the team probably doesn't like it all that much the idea more than anything is they're working on these things together and there is not a team in the NFL in which the the head coach is oblivious to what one side of the ball is doing they're involved in everything so um if if it is tomin calling the plays which I know that he is um he's the one leading that on game day but Butler is primarily responsible with putting all of the plan together based on the general philosophy of the team which is a really it's a Kevin Colbert thing along with Mike Tomlin and for the Steelers Rooney is involved with that as well so they have a partnership they've have a collaboration and they've operated like that for a long time they're comfortable with it um the results to some degree except for this year have been pretty good on the defensive side of the ball so I would imagine that uh they don't want to bring in a first year coordinator and have them call plays over Tomlin I think he's there for a reason they gave him an extension for a reason this is what he wants to do that's what they're going to do okay so we've now watched um in this era there have been the 11 overtimes uh 10 of which the team that won the coin toss won the game seven of those 11 the team that won the coin toss won the game in their first possession that includes Sunday so those are the stats just so everybody knows so calling tals is the biggest mistake Josh Allen made the entire week uh the NFL is the only professional sport that I know of where both teams don't get shots at it should the NFL change its postseason overtime role I think it it's it's a really layered subject the stats don't lie that's kind of the thing I I'll say this um if if we were to ignore the output that we've seen to this point I would say primarily this is an issue of fatigue it's an issue of injury risk and it's an issue of broadcast Partners wanting to get on with the sweetest Plum which is the postgame show whether we as fa like that or not you have to respect that the league is in this for a profit and the networks are paying over a decade billions of dollars now for the rights to these games they want to make that money back yeah so that's the direction the league wants to go it's going to operate accordingly and at the same time I don't think that it diminishes the product on the field very much and I can say that because as fun as the game was there is a difference between arguing for fairness versus arguing for entertainment I would have liked to have seen the game go on you know who wouldn't probably every player that was on the field at that point right playoff football is not a walk in the park it's not leisurely and fun the way that the fans think that it is it's brutal and those teams were they were beating each other up pretty badly right you saw it that's it's not here's another thing I'm not trying to to go off the rails here but oh no no we're having fun with it it's great to see a great player like Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes making plays the defenses were gassed both of them were just dead I AG I agree with that you saw my FES his ankles might have broken I'm not sure it wasn't a great move to his inside he's completely dead okay he's tired yeah that's why he flipped in fell I have no clue what Leslie Frasier was calling at the end of the game I have no clue that's not great football just because Travis Kelsey makes a 25 yard play does not mean it's a great play okay people get stuck into this mindset that offense means quality the end of that game objectively was terrible it was really really bad so the idea that somehow or other from a a metaphysical level Josh Allen was owed of possessions in overtime makes zero sense to me at all it it's yes it comes down to a coin toss I don't know where you draw that line exactly but I also know that football is an attrition game you take possessions okay you earn possessions the coin toss thing I get that it seems weird give me another proposal that that can make up for the fact that the players at the end of an extremely violent competitive game are able to go out and play well they're able to protect themselves as well basketball you can be fatigued for sure you are not running nearly the risk of injury if you're tired basketball as if as if you are in football okay you can't do it all that much differently than what it is right now you cannot have them play an entire other quarter of football uh you can't shorten the clock and then give out possession to somebody all of these things come with caveats that have legitimate problems that go beyond fan entertainment that's why they have the system that they have and I get that it seems silly I don't think there is a better way to do it I think there are a million different ways and they're not going to change it year to year they're going to want what appears to be the most reasonable outcome to me and I I've said this before to me fair is a place you show pigs in August okay it's not in football that's not the way the game is designed there's a coin toss at the beginning of the game that nobody cares about at all the coin toss in overtime gets everybody up in arms because now suddenly both teams deserve a chance to get the ball I don't understand why it's not Josh Allen's fault that their defense gave up 42 points but it absolutely is the Buffalo Bills fault who's the game being played for the bills or Josh Allen okay it's it's a team game at some point you have to step up and make a stop and the bills just flat out couldn't do that would that have happened to the Chiefs too I don't know maybe so you flipped the coin it's 5050 for both sides what else do you want to do that that makes sense I I have yet to hear a proposal that makes any sense it covers uh it covers length of game it covers safety it's just there's not much else you can do and I get that people are all up in arms but this is just not it's not worth it at some point you have to step up and and stop a team from scoring and clearly U Buffalo is not able to do that at the end this is why we saw the amount of scoring that we did at the end it's not because just solely that Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are are fantastic players they are no doubt but they were playing against completely depleted defensive teams it was over at that point you hoped the game wouldn't have to go in overtime but you can thank Buffalo for that again that that again is their fault it's not Josh Allen's problem but I'm not putting the loss on Josh Allen either I put the loss on the Buffalo Bills oh no the loss does belong to the Buffalo Bills especially defensively because you know you should be able to defend 75 yards and 13 seconds uh so you should it's you're talking to somebody who did nine overtimes seven of which seven of which were two-point conversions so so I'm a witness to and to be honest with you I think the two-point conversion thing I know why they did it because LSU and Texas A&M from the 25 yard line did seven overtimes I understand that so it's one play One play One play One play but after broadcasting it it's ridiculous it's just it's it's an arcade game you know we're playing video we're playing a video game version of the sports that they just spent it's penalty shots it's it's it's it's PKS in the world cup and that that don't G to get into that I've had conversations with people about it I'm not a big soccer fan I I respect the game yeah I hate the fact that games like that and on penalty kicks now to be fair I don't know what else you could do in soccer not a sport that you score I mean you can't you can't sit there and start on Wednesday and on Friday they're still playing yeah yeah I mean you know that could last as long as World War II in some cases you know you have to be able to end it somehow um it's beside the point though football is the middle ground it's not the scoring of basketball it's not the scoring of soccer in between that possession is with the exception of one coin toss that decides the the possession of the start of the first half and the second half you are actively battling for possession that is the game so I I don't know another way to do it I've heard people say well the last team to score why it's completely arbitrary that has nothing to do with anything at that point the last team to score could have been in the first quarter you know like look at the the San Francisco Green Bay game if that went into overtime why would s why should San Francisco get the ball because they blocked a punt and and somebody fell on at the end zone that doesn't mean anything at least a coin toss is 50/50 but either way whatever way you do this you can argue at the same way that you do because you want the game to continue it's whatever team is at fault and to me that that's not what this is about the only way to do it objectively and I I understand how silly it is is to flip a coin and they they get away with it to that degree um should both teams have a possession no why you know they they do the most that they can to make sure in today's game you can three incomplete passes Chuck up a heave and prey 40 yards down the field get a 55 Yard penalty and set yourself up for a a 59 yard field goal to win a game at overtime that's dumb I think everybody would agree that that's a silly outcome to an overtime game on the first possession you eliminate that possibility Kansas City did not win the game because they won the coin toss they won the game because they went 75 yards in four and a half minutes and buffalo did basically nothing to stop them that entire time yeah that that's it it's not the coin toss it's your defense and you lost it's tough I know Kansas City lost the same way to New England a couple years ago I'm sure they were upset about it then yep exactly it's gonna it's gonna happen I get it it's gonna happen I don't think there's a better way to do it you know I I don't think that there is but you know what how about this root for the Baltimore Ravens John Harbaugh doesn't believe in overtime he wants to win the game straight up maybe that's the best way to do it I'm not always a pleasure my friend I know you'll bounce back to 100% shortly I'm going to that's my plan thanks for having you guys