The NFL's overtime can still come down to a coin toss. Is it better to kick or receive?

New York Giants coach Brian Daboll took virtually no heat from football peers this past week after his first-of-its-kind strategy call ended in a heartbreaking Big Blue loss

New York Giants coach Brian Daboll took virtually no heat from football peers this past week after his first-of-its-kind strategy call ended in a heartbreaking Big Blue loss.

The Giants elected to play defense to start overtime against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, kicking off a new debate about how to attack pro football’s newly formatted 61st minute of play.

This NFL regular season is the first where both sides are required to have the ball at least once if they are tied after four quarters. And if the score is still tied after one turn each on offense, then it’s sudden death.

“I would take the ball, at least that’s what the current evidence suggests,” Ron Yurko, director of the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center, told NBC News this week. “It’s still an advantage to take the ball at the start. It’s a smaller advantage than it was [in previous sudden death rules], but it’s still an advantage.”

This new regular-season guideline largely matches the NFL’s playoff format, which has been in place since 2022.