Document Type
Thesis
First Faculty Advisor
Rick Gorvett
Second Faculty Advisor
John Quinn
Keywords
statistics; NFL; overtime rules
Publisher
Bryant University
Rights Management
CC-BY-NC-ND
Abstract
The NFL has attempted to create fair overtime rules over the course of the past decade; however, this study is interested in determining what playoff overtime rule (or rules) could the NFL implement to result in outcomes where both teams have a relatively equal chance of winning a game. This study aims to find which overtime rules work best at minimizing the differences between teams who possess the ball first versus teams that kick the ball off to start an overtime period. By collecting various NFL statistics from ESPN.com and FantasyOutsiders.com, this study hopes to run multiple simulations of different overtime scenarios, to minimize the differences of win percentages between all teams. After collecting win percentages of all teams, this study will look to see if there is any significant improvement in decreasing the difference of win percentages. The goal of this study is to determine a method in which the NFL can effectively allow for both teams to win a game in a playoff overtime scenario.
