But because of one game, many are bitching about the league’s overtime rules for all the wrong reasons.

It’s time for the NFL to change its overtime rules
Chiefs-Bills shows why NFL must change unfair overtime rule
Overtime rule undermines NFL’s best weekend ever
NFL needs to change its overtime format
Chiefs-Bills Leaves NFL Fans Wanting to Toss Out Overtime Rules: Data Viz
Chiefs-Bills masterpiece decided on a coin flip shows NFL’s overtime rule is awful and must be fixed
Chiefs-Bills Thriller Sparks Debate: Is It Time To Overhaul Overtime?
Bills Notebook: NFL’s overtime rules fall under the spotlight after classic playoff game
NFL overtime rule under attack after Kansas City walks off on first-possession TD
Even winning coach Andy Reid questions NFL’s overtime setup
Patrick Mahomes leads Chiefs to THRILLING overtime playoff win over Bills – but fans demand change to ‘terrible’ coin toss rule that ‘decides the winner’

Spare me the “it wasn’t fair” whining as scoring-first-because-of-winning-the-coin-flip is of no documented clear advantage.

Under the current OT rules, there have been 163 OT games. Teams that won the OT coin toss have a record of 86-67-10 in those games (won 52.8 pct of the games)
— Ian Rapoport, 1/24/22

The NFL overtime rules are quite clear and both teams knew what was expected from the onset.

Both teams must have the opportunity to possess the ball once during the extra period, unless the team that receives the opening kickoff scores a touchdown on its initial possession, in which case it is the winner, or if the team kicking off to start the overtime period scores a safety on the receiving team’s initial possession, in which case the team that kicked off is the winner. If a touchdown is scored, the game is over, and the Try is not attempted.

If the team that possesses the ball first does not score on its initial possession, the team next scoring by any method shall be the winner.

If the team that possesses the ball first scores a field goal on its initial possession, the other team (the second team) shall have the opportunity to possess the ball.
— National Football League, RULE 16. Overtime Procedures

The “Overtime Procedures” references “teams”. Let’s be more specific.

After the coin toss, it’s up to one team’s defense to stop the opposing team’s offense. In this case, it was up to the Buffalo Bills’ defense to stop Mahomes and the Chiefs from scoring a touchdown. Had they done so and either forced them to either kick a field goal or punt, Josh Allen and the Bills would get the ball and an opportunity to either kick a field goal or score a touchdown and win.

The overtime rules didn’t deny Allen an opportunity to get the ball; his defense did and it was obvious why. They were gassed. During the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, both teams’ defenses were visually exhausted giving a clear advantage to both teams’ dynamic offenses. That’s why the NFL rule for overtime (since 2010) is the way it is as opposed to making them play a whole 15 minute overtime period where the play would deteriorate even more and possibly risk player injury.

Maybe it was inevitable that we’d have such an exciting game end the way it did, but again it wasn’t the rules that beat the Buffalo Bills. It was their defense’s inability to stop the Chiefs’ offense. Had the Bills won the coin flip, the counter scenario could have happened as the Chiefs’ defense was exhausted as well. Either way, it’s not about making sure each team’s offense has a fair chance to score. The defense also has a job to do.

Buffalo’s defense ran out of gas and there’s no remedy in the rule book for that. Had New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick’s team lost in a similar manner, he would have said “We didn’t do our job” and not bitch and moan about the rules that both teams knew going into the game.

Take the kneejerk emotion out of it and you have to conclude the outcome was fair.

Deal with it.

Disclaimer: I am a New England Patriots fan and have no dog in this fight.

Yes, they’re human but they’re also supposed to be the best the National Football League has to offer. But as they also say in football, “On any given Sunday”….

Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores ran across the field after his team lost, went to the nearest official and told him with an expletive what he thought of a pass-interference reversal that cost his team a win. And you thought that would be the worst moment for NFL referees on Sunday

If there’s one truth about the NFL, it’s that the officials can always lower the bar. On Sunday they deserved every word Flores said to them, and whatever Bill Belichick said to them too.

Sunday’s New England Patriots loss turned into a fiasco. Fans often believe officials call games to favor the Patriots, but the officials showed Sunday that their mistakes have no bias.
— Yahoo Sports, 12/9/19

…
Some teams are trying to back into the playoffs, thus players and coaches hope to justify their jobs for next season.

“This isn’t about me at all. It’s about those players, the coaches, the cafeteria people and the equipment staff and everybody in this organization. We all put a lot into this. Winning is important to us.”
— Brian Flores, Miami Dolphins head coach

Some teams are vying for playoff seeding. These goals should be determined by said players and coaches and not referees; some who can barely make it up and down the field, let alone see plays unfold mere feet from where they’re standing.

It was a huge loss for the Patriots. They now have almost no chance to get the No. 1 seed in the AFC and could end up losing the No. 2 seed to the Chiefs. Had the officiating been better, they might not have lost.

Instant replay was supposed to make sure referees got the call right, but if everyone in the stadium (not to mention nationally-televised audiences) can see what happened on the field and bad calls are allowed to stand, what good are they?

Full disclosure: We are pre-2001, lifelong New England Patriots fans.

The Kansas City Chiefs announced they were cutting Hunt on Friday, after video of the assault was published by TMZ. In the video, Hunt and the woman trade words in a hallway and are separated by several people on multiple occasions. Hunt pushes the woman, who responds by hitting him in the face. Two men escort Hunt down a hallway before he charges out, colliding with a man who then knocks the woman over. Hunt also kicks the woman in the leg.

The Chiefs said Hunt was not truthful in his discussions with the team about what happened, leading to the decision to part ways with him. Sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter and ESPN’s Chris Mortensen that the NFL did not interview the woman in its investigation.
— ESPN, 12/2/18

As in the Ray Rice incident, we have no idea what a “19-year-old” woman was even doing at 3:22AM in an Ohio hotel and later said to get this all started prior to what “TMZ Sports” posted online.

She clearly wasn’t there to sell Girl Scout cookies.

Again, this brings up the whole notion that a woman can say or do anything to a man without repercussions.

Remember the word we were all told to avoid when it comes to such occurrences and a woman goes too far: provoke.

As New England Patriots supporters, we are in no way fans or sympathizers of the Kansas City Chiefs or Kareem Hunt. We are well aware of the ramifications of the Chiefs losing one of their top two players going into the winter months and the possible effect on playoff seeding which will determine the possible climates the Chiefs may have to play through in January.

But if this happened last February, why are we just hearing about it now?

While it’s politically incorrect to question the motives of a “victim”, a reasonable person could rightly ask how you’d address your 19-year-old being in a hotel after three in the morning, what you could possibly have said to an NFL millionaire to so piss him off as to shove you away and why in the world you’d proceed to ramp it up with violence of your own?

Young professional athletes are warned what to look out for when it comes to the opposite sex.

When educating players about the evil that lurks in skirts, it’s important to teach humility, says Satch Sanders, who runs the NBA’s player programs (including a 4 1/2-day seminar similar to MLB’s). “I remind rookies of their physical, uh, prowess and the money they make. Then I say, ‘If you were not that attractive to ladies growing up, believe me, you didn’t turn into Denzel overnight. If two or three women are discerning enough to see your good points, fine. But 30 or 40? Can so many women be so perceptive?’” Of course, convincing a $10-million-a-year 22-year-old forward that he’s not quite as “all that” as the ladies say may be the biggest lost cause in history. Keeping pro ballers out of their own way — at least when it comes to the opposite sex — may just be a task for greater powers.
— ESPN Magazine, 3/18/13

As the woman in the Kareem Hunt incident has not been questioned, we have no idea what she said and what she was doing at the hotel in the first place. The whole “a man should never hit a woman” becomes a convenient and necessary cover if the woman decides to go too far, especially when it can result in a significant payday.

Motivation and incentives are very important (see: Erica Kinsman).

Meanwhile, the complexion of the NFL seeding have been affected and not in favor of the Kansas City Chiefs. And as this incident happened and has been sat upon since February, who leaked this to TMZ Sports at a time when the cold weather/running game factor enters the NFL equation going into the last month of the season and playoffs? Taking running back Kareem Hunt out has serious implications for a moderate temperature-Kansas City team that may have to go to an arctic climate down the stretch.

The Chiefs have won just one playoff game in 24 years, and that was against Brian Hoyer. The Chiefs were the winningest team of the 1990s, and only made it as far as the AFC Championship Game once. Since 1990, no team has lost more playoff games while winning fewer.

Since the NFL playoffs expanded to the current format, teams with a first-round bye have won 74 percent of the division games. The Chiefs are 0-5 in that spot. Twice they’ve had homefield advantage throughout the playoffs, and bupkis.
— Kansas City Star, 1/4/18

So, a very public verdict of Kareem Hunt’s guilt and punishment has been meted out to appease that flaky court of public opinion; many of whom couldn’t tell you what division the Chiefs are in.

As we first reported, the woman repeatedly told Cleveland PD officers who responded to the scene she wanted to press charges. In the bodycam video we posted, she asked to see the surveillance footage, and also asked the police to look at it. So, the question is … WHY has she gone silent? We’ve reached out to her several times, but no reply.
— TMZ Sports, 12/2/18

Hmm… is there audio with that surveillance video that might be inconvenient?

The so-called victim may eventually be lured into coming forward, receive fawning national attention, maybe cash-in with a GoFundMe, and exploit the potential for a huge settlement for doing absolutely nothing aside from looking for trouble at the wrong time and opening her big mouth at the right time.

NFL Still Clueless Involving Players Abusing Women

Obviously, NFL players aren’t defended as competently as Hollywood actors and certain politicians.

It makes one wonder if Kareem Hunt is a Republican. We all know if he’s a Democrat, he could assault a woman and even be elected attorney general.

Go figure.

UPDATE:

Like the Ray Rice incident, more was made over the publicly-distributed video than what precipitated the controversy because, according to PC rules, we’re NEVER to ask what the woman did to “provoke” and/or escalate tensions. It would appear the rush to judgment regarding Kareem Hunt may have resulted in a different outcome had ALL of the details been publicly put forth prior to the disciplinary actions of the Kansas City Chiefs and National Football League.

In interviews they would later give to police, as captured in police video and reports, Hunt and his friends say everyone in their group was getting along fine throughout the evening of Feb. 9. It was only when they got back to the hotel that things deteriorated.

“I only know those girls through a friend,” Rayshawn Watkins, Hunt’s teammate from Toledo, tells officers in the video. “They invited us to a club tonight. We got to the club, and they were overly drunk, as you can tell. But come to find out, they’re not even 21. They’re 19 years old. We were like, ‘Can you guys please leave us alone?’”

Watkins tells police Abby Ottinger, a 19-year-old Kent State student from Middleburg Heights, Ohio and her friend, Dominique Hamilton, got along fine with everyone throughout the evening, but that ended inside Hunt’s residence. According to Watkins’ account, Hunt said Ottinger and Hamilton couldn’t stay the night. Watkins says he offered $20 when they said they didn’t have enough money for an Uber ride home. “We’re college students, right?” Ottinger says.

The women somehow got themselves to Cleveland but it was going to be someone else’s responsibility to get them back to their residence.

Got it.

After he sent them into the hall, Ottinger began to scream and pound on the door, according to his account.

“They’re in the hallway, like standing by the elevator,” Watkins tells police. “I come out and I’m like, ‘You guys are being too loud. Please just leave us alone.’ She started freaking out, grabbing the back of my head. She broke my necklace. She tried calling me the N-word. She called us niggers and shit like that. We’re like, ‘There is no point of you to do that. We just want you to leave us alone.’ Then they started getting aggressive, hitting us.”

Ottinger could not be reached for comment by Outside the Lines.
— ESPN, 12/7/18

Why should she when the damage was done, she was prematurely pronounced the victim, and she gets to walk away?

The alleged victim in the February 2018 incident involving former Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt initially wanted to press charges. Now, 19-year-old Abby Ottinger simply wants to be left alone.

A comprehensive review of the situation conducted by ESPN’s Outside The Lines included an effort to speak to Ottinger. A member of her family told ESPN on Wednesday that “the whole incident has been very difficult for her and that all she wants now is her privacy.”

Some league insiders have speculated that Hunt and Ottinger reached a settlement.
— Yahoo Sports, 12/7/18

At the end of the day, when it comes to these cleat-chasers, it’s all about getting paid one way or another.

Kareem Hunt has entered “anger management” training however no word if Abby Ottinger will be required to attend sensitivity training because some women get a pass no matter how far over the line they cross.