NFL Overtime Rules: What Are They This Year?

When getting ready to bet on football games, it’s important to understand the overtime rules for both the regular season and the playoffs. 

This is especially true for the postseason, as this could impact a team’s NFL playoff odds. 

Nothing would be worse than making wagers on the sport in 2024, and because you misunderstood a rule, multiple of your parlays have crashed and burned. 

Fear not, as below, I’ll walk you through the overtime rules in the NFL in 2024. 

How Does Overtime Work in the NFL This Year?

Let’s examine the regular season and the postseason to understand how overtime works in the NFL this year. 

Here are some key details to be aware of for the regular season: 

• There’s a single 10-minute overtime period. 
• Each team can possess the ball at least once unless the team that receives first takes the ball and scores a touchdown. The game can also end if the team with the ball first registers a safety.
• If the team that receives the ball first scores in any other way, the other team will get a chance with the ball. 
• If both teams have one possession and no scoring, it becomes sudden death, and the first team to score wins. 
• Each team gets two timeouts. 
• There’s no point-after-attempt following touchdowns in overtime. 
• If the teams are tied at the end of the 10-minute overtime period, the game is a tie. 
• The replay official initiates all reviews. 

Now, let’s look at the postseason: 

• Playoff games cannot end in a tie. 
• The overtime period in the playoffs is a 15-minute period. 
• There are infinite 15-minute overtime periods until a team has won.
• Both teams will get at least one position regardless of a touchdown being scored by the first team to possess the ball. 
• All reviews are initiated by the replay official. 
• Each team gets three timeouts during a half. 
• The intermission between the end of regulation and the first overtime is three minutes or less. 
• There’s a two-minute intermission between each overtime period.
• There’s no halftime intermission after the second overtime period.
• Should there be a third overtime period, the captain who lost the first overtime coin toss will then get to pick whether his team receives or defends. 
• The only exception to the rule above is if the team that won the first coin toss deferred. 
• If there’s no winner at the end of a fourth overtime, there will be another coin toss. 

When Did the NFL Overtime Rules Change?

The most recent rule change involving overtime occurred after the 2021-22 AFC championship game between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs. 

In that game, the Chiefs won the overtime coin toss, elected to receive, and scored. 

This meant the Bills lost the AFC championship in overtime despite never touching the ball.

For such a high-stakes game, this rule was heavily scrutinized and changed in March 2022. 

Other overtime rule changes include reducing the time from 15 minutes to 10 during the regular season. That occurred in 2017. 

There was another rule change before that, though, in 2010. 

From 1974 to 2010, overtime was determined by a single 15-minute sudden death. 

That changed after the 2010 NFC championship game in which the New Orleans Saints beat the Minnesota Vikings 31-28. The rule change in 2010 brought the “modified” sudden death which allowed teams to win in overtime on a touchdown on the first possession, but anything less, like a field goal, would allow the other team to possess the ball. 

This was first introduced in just the postseason but became season-wide a couple of years later. 

Is NFL Overtime Sudden Death in Playoffs?

No. During overtime in the NFL playoffs today, both teams will get a chance to possess the ball. If a team scores a touchdown, the other team will have a chance to match that. If neither team scores, the next team to score will win. 

The only time a team can win without the other team possessing the ball is if the team on defence generates a safety on the team that possessed the ball first.