Did the Rams deserve a chance to match the Lions overtime touchdown?
The Los Angeles Rams didn’t roll over and die as they lost key player after key player due to injury, standing toe-to-toe with the Detroit Lions on their home turf and forcing overtime on Sunday Night Football. Unfortunately, getting to overtime was not good enough. The Rams would have also needed to win the coin toss to give themselves a decent chance to actually beat the Lions, as both defenses looked so exhausted by the end that really that decided the game as much as David Montgomery scoring the winning touchdown.
Matthew Stafford called heads, it was tails, and that basically ended L.A.’s hopes right there.
Can’t believe Matthew Stafford just picked heads. Not something you would expect out of a veteran.
— Harrison Francesa (@H_Francesa) September 9, 2024
The NFL adopted overtime rules for regular season games in 1974. The league stopped letting teams win with a first possession field goal in 2012. Overtime was reduced from 15 minutes to 10 minutes in 2017. And now it’s a question of how long it will take for the NFL to change the rules again.
Should the NFL change the rule so that teams that start on defense get a chance to match any type of offensive score, including a touchdown?
The Rams were down 17-3 until an 11-play, 70 yard drive that took 7 minutes helped L.A. score their first touchdown of the game late in the third quarter. Then the Rams went 76 yards and kicked a field goal. Then the Rams went 80 yards and took the lead on a touchdown.
By that time, the Rams offense was practically unstoppable. Unfortunately, so was the Lions offense.
Detroit went 55 yards in under two minutes to get into range for a game-tying field goal that Sean McVay decided not to slow down with some timeouts, allowing the game to go into overtime.
The Lions won the toss and went 70 yards by almost exclusively using David Montgomery on the ground. L.A. had no answers for anyone and because of these OT rules, Matthew Stafford was never given a chance to rectify calling heads.
The Rams gave everything they had in order to almost overcome major bad luck, including losing multiple offensive linemen and Puka Nacua to injuries mid-game. The only thing they forgot to do was the wrap the bow on tails.
