The Chiefs’ new postseason overtime rule, guaranteeing both teams a possession even if the team that receives the overtime kickoff scores a touchdown, was put to the test for the first time in Super Bowl LVIII. San Francisco won the coin toss, and coach Kyle Shanahan chose to receive the kickoff. If Kansas City had won the toss, coach Andy Reid would have kicked.
Reid said on Monday morning that he and Chiefs statistical analysis coordinator Mike Frazier have discussed the overtime rules and strategies and they both agreed that it’s advantageous to get the ball second because that way you know what you need to do when you have the ball.
“Mike Frazier, our analytics chief, he does all the work on it,” Reid said. “It can go either way, but the one thing it does, is it gives you the opportunity to see what you’ve got to do. They came down and scored three points, you’ve either got to score three or get a touchdown.”
Reid noted that postseason overtime is fundamentally different than regular season overtime not only because of the rule that the team that kicks off is guaranteed a possession even after a touchdown, but also because the game can’t end until two full possessions are completed even if a full 15 minutes run off the clock, and the game can’t end in a tie.
Reid also credited the officials for making sure the teams understood what their options were in overtime. During the postseason the NFL assigns extra officials to the sidelines to help with game administration, which Reid said was helpful in that situation. Reid also said quarterback Patrick Mahomes and special teams coordinator Dave Toub were all on the same page about what they wanted to do.
“That can go either way,” Reid said. “We would have kicked the ball off. The officials, actually, are on top of it right away. There were still a couple seconds on the clock and we had the extra officials on the sideline asking me what we would do, and I said we’ll kick off. Patrick was on the field and he was the one who had to do it, and then Dave Toub.”
It’s an interesting discussion for people who are interested in football strategy and analytics, and in Super Bowl LVIII it changed from a theoretical discussion to a practical decision that worked out for the Chiefs and didn’t work out for the 49ers.