In an episode of SB Nation’s Uffsides with Matt Ufford, Matt proposes an interesting idea: ban regular season overtime. If the game is tied after 60 minutes, then it ends in a tie. Overtime should be special and reserved for the playoffs only. If this was the case, how would have the 2017 NFL season ended?

Before we get started, let’s look at how it actually ended:

Final Regular Season Standings:

North	South	East	West
Pittsburgh Steelers 13-3	Jacksonville Jaguars 10-6	New England Patriots 13-3	Kansas City Chiefs 10-6
Baltimore Ravens 9-7	Tennessee Titans 9-7	Buffalo Bills 9-7	Los Angeles Chargers 9-7
Cincinnati Bengals 7-9	Houston Texans 4-12	Miami Dolphins 6-10	Oakland Raiders 6-10
Cleveland Browns 0-16 (yikes)	Indianapolis Colts 4-12	New York Jets 5-11	Denver Broncos 5-11

North	South	East	West
Minnesota Vikings 13-3	New Orleans Saints 11-5	Philadelphia Eagles 13-3	Los Angeles Rams 11-5
Detroit Lions 9-7	Carolina Panthers 11-5	Dallas Cowboys 9-7	Seattle Seahawks 9-7
Green Bay Packers 7-9	Atlanta Falcons 10-6	Washington Redskins 7-9	Arizona Cardinals 8-8
Chicago Bears 5-11	Tampa Bay Buccaneers 5-11	New York Giants 3-13	San Francisco 49ers 6-10

Playoff Seeding (in ascending seed order):

• AFC: Patriots, Steelers, Jaguars, Chiefs, Titans, Bills
• NFC: Eagles, Vikings, Rams, Saints, Panthers, Falcons

The Overtime Games:

14 regular season games went to overtime that season. Let’s change all of those to ties and see how things changed.

• Week 1: No OT games.
• Week 2: Arizona & Indianapolis tie. Both teams improve to a record of 0-1-1.
• Week 3:
  • Chicago and Pittsburgh tie. The Bears can’t get a win, improving to 0-2-1, while the Steelers still break their win streak and move on to 2-0-1.
  • Green Bay and Cincinnati tie. The Packers snap their one-game win streak, moving to 1-1-1, and the Bengals break their losing streak to improve to 0-2-1.
• Week 4:
  • Arizona and San Francisco tie. This is the second tie of the season for the Cardinals, and they are still win-less as they improve to 0-2-2. For the 49ers, they are relieved for a game to end in something other than a loss, and improve to 0-3-1.
  • The New York Jets and Jacksonville tie. The Jets are unable to get back-to-back wins and move on to 1-2-1, while the Jaguars are unable to ride the momentum from last week’s pounding of Baltimore and improve to 2-1-1.
• Week 5: Indianapolis and San Francisco tie. This is the second tie of the season for both teams. The Colts keep their mediocre season intact as they improve to 1-2-2, while San Francisco is still win-less at 0-3-2 after back-to-back ties.
• Week 6: Baltimore and Chicago tie. The Ravens pick up their first tie of the season and improve to 3-2-1 (nice), while the Bears have their second tie of the year for a disappointing 0-4-2.
• Week 7: Cleveland and Tennessee tie. God has answered the Brown’s prayers and ended their losing streak!…with a tie. This brings the Dogs to 0-6-1, while the Titans go on to 3-3-1 (so close).
• Week 8: No OT games.
• Week 9: No OT games.
• Week 10: Jacksonville and the Los Angeles Chargers tie. Sacksonville breaks its win streak with their second tie of the season and goes on to 5-2-2. The Chargers come back from the bye week with their first tie improving to 3-5-1.
• Week 11:
  • The New York Giants and Kansas City tie. The Giant’s 4-week win-less streak continues as they stumble along to 1-8-1, while the Chiefs come off their bye week with their only tie of the season before losing back-to-back games.
  • New Orleans and Washington tie. The Saints break a dominating 7-game win streak and fall to 7-2-1, and the Redskins rebound off the previous week’s loss and improve to 4-5-1.
• Week 12: No OT games.
• Week 13: Green Bay and Tampa Bay tie (coincidence?). In their second tie of the season the Packers move to 4-6-2, while the Bucs have their first draw of the year for a 4-7-1 record.
• Week 14:
  • Buffalo and Indianapolis tie. The Bills rebound from the previous week’s demolishing by the Patriots with a snooze-fest 7-7 tie, moving on to 6-6-1. The Colts pick up their third tie of the season and snap their 3-game losing streak, improving to 2-8-3.
  • Cleveland and Green Bay tie. The Browns blow their second chance for a win and move onto a dismal 0-11-2 as the Cheeseheads ride back-to-back ties for a 4-6-3 record.
• Week 15: No OT games.
• Week 16: No OT games.
• Week 17: No OT games.

Final Standings:

North	South	East	West
Pittsburgh Steelers 13-2-1	Jacksonville Jaguars 9-5-2	New England Patriots 13-3	Kansas City Chiefs 10-5-1
Baltimore Ravens 9-6-1	Tennessee Titans 8-7-1	Buffalo Bills 8-7-1	Los Angeles Chargers 9-6-1
Cincinnati Bengals 7-8-1	Indianapolis Colts 3-10-3	Miami Dolphins 6-10	Oakland Raiders 6-10
Cleveland Browns 0-14-2 (still yikes)	Houston Texans 4-12	New York Jets 4-11-1	Denver Broncos 5-11

North	South	East	West
Minnesota Vikings 13-3	Carolina Panthers 11-5	Philadelphia Eagles 13-3	Los Angeles Rams 11-5
Detroit Lions 9-7	New Orleans Saints 10-5-1	Dallas Cowboys 9-7	Seattle Seahawks 9-7
Green Bay Packers 4-9-3	Atlanta Falcons 10-6	Washington Redskins 7-8-1	Arizona Cardinals 6-8-2
Chicago Bears 3-11-2	Tampa Bay Buccaneers 5-10-1	New York Giants 2-13-1	San Francisco 49ers 6-8-2

Playoff Seeding (in ascending seed order):

• AFC: Steelers, Patriots, Chiefs, Jaguars, Ravens, Chargers
  • Ravens get the 5 seed over the Chargers via conference win percentage.
• NFC: Eagles, Vikings, Panthers, Rams, Saints, Falcons
  • Panthers get the 3 seed over the Rams via win percentage in common games (I think).

What Changed?

• First and foremost the Browns still sucked. They failed to join the Lions as the only teams to go 0-16 but 0-14-2 is still just terrible.
• Indy lucked (ha) out of last place in their division, but still had an awful year at 3-10-3.
• Green Bay revealed just how truly mediocre they are without Aaron Rodgers to save them in the 4th quarter. The Bears were pretty lame too.
• Carolina stole the division from New Orleans. This would be the only division title to change hands with our new “rule”.

The Playoff Picture:

AFC:

• Tennessee and Buffalo got the boot as the Ravens and Chargers moved in.
• The Chiefs would play the Chargers in the Wild Card round, but given they handily beat the Diamond Dogs both times during the regular season it’s safe to assume they win again.
• Sacksonville has a Week 3 rematch with Baltimore and win again to move to the Divisional Round.
• The Jags meet the Steelers again (just like in real life), and given their regular season win and real 2017 playoff win over the Black & Gold Brigade, we assume they still move on to the AFC Championship.
• In their last five meetings, the Patriots have beat Kansas City three times. I’m going to give New England the benefit of the doubt and assume they win, but barely.
• The AFC Championship is still the Jacksonville Davids versus the New England Goliaths. In this case Goliath is too mighty and (still) beats David.
• AFC Champion: New England Patriots

NFC:

• In the smallest of margins Carolina edges out New Orleans for the division. Cam Newton still finds himself against a division rival in the Wild Card round, this time facing the Falcons. They split the 2017 regular season series, but looking at their last five match-ups Carolina has been on the losing end four times, so I’m giving the W to Matty Ice and the Falcons.
• The Rams move down a seed and are paired against the Saints. I’m sorry McVay, but I don’t see any world where Goff is edging out Brees, and given the Rams’ 2018 loss to the Saints I think this is a reasonable choice. The Saints are moving on.
• History tells us the rest. Philly beats Atlanta and the Minneapolis Miracle enshrines itself in NFL lore forever. The NFC Championship game happens and Vikings fans everywhere die from alcohol poisoning.
• NFC Champion: Philadelphia Eagles

Super Bowl:

After changing 14 games to ties, one division title going to a different mantle, two different playoff teams and seven teams getting different playoff seeds, our new Super Bowl match-up is….the same? What the hell? It turns out that if your team ties a lot you already suck, so your chances at the playoffs are slim. 19 of the 28 T’s (~68%) that got added to the 2017 standings were to teams that finished third or fourth in their division.

So I guess Matt was right? Getting rid of regular season overtime did little to nothing in each division (tell that to the 2018 Browns), so maybe it is pointless and the NFL should ditch it to reduce the chances of player injuries. People will complain at first but will eventually move on and just accept it as part of the game. Maybe 2018 will be different. There’s still 6 weeks to go and no divisions have been clinched yet. I’ll do the same for the 2018 regular season and make playoff predictions and we’ll see how accurate I am. I’ll probably get it all wrong.

TL;DR: Regular Season Overtime is dumb.

Special thanks to Matt Ufford (@mattufford) for the idea, and to Pro-Football-Reference for their incredible database.