If a game is level after sixty minutes, it goes to overtime, and the rules are not quite what you would guess. It is no longer pure sudden death: both teams now get a chance with the ball. In the regular season, overtime is a single ten-minute period and the game can still end in a tie. In the playoffs, they play on until someone wins. Here is how it works, and how it got here.
The old rule, and why it changed
For a long time overtime was as simple as it sounds, and a lot of people felt it was unfair. From 1974 the rule was sudden death: the first team to score anything won. So if you won the coin toss at the start of overtime and drove down for a touchdown, the game was over and the other team never touched the ball.
One game brought that to a head. In the playoff meeting between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills on 23 January 2022, the two teams traded scores in a frantic final two minutes, and the game went to overtime tied. The Chiefs won the coin toss, scored a touchdown on the opening drive, and that was that. Buffalo’s Josh Allen, who had just thrown four touchdowns himself, never got the ball back. The Chiefs won 42-36. Allen took it gracefully, saying afterwards that “if it was the other way around, we’d be celebrating too”, but the point was made: one of the best games anyone could remember had been decided by a coin flip before half the stars on the field got a turn.
The league changed the rule. From the 2022 offseason, both teams were guaranteed a possession in the playoffs, and in 2025 that was extended to the regular season too. A touchdown on the opening drive no longer ends the game. Both sides get the ball.
How overtime works now: the regular season
If a regular-season game is tied after four quarters, a ten-minute overtime period is played. There is a short break, then a coin toss, and the winner almost always chooses to take the ball first.
Both teams are guaranteed a possession, even if the first team scores a touchdown. The one exception is if the defending team scores on that opening drive, say by intercepting a pass and running it back, which ends the game there and then. Otherwise, once both teams have had the ball, whoever is ahead wins. If it is still level after that, the next score of any kind wins it, which is where sudden death finally kicks in. And if nobody has pulled ahead when the ten minutes run out, the game is recorded as a tie. Each team gets two timeouts.
How overtime works in the playoffs
The playoffs cannot end in a tie, because somebody has to go through to the next round. So the format is different: overtime is played in full fifteen-minute periods, as many as it takes.
Both teams still get their guaranteed possession. After that, the next score wins, and if a period ends with the game still level, they simply start another one and keep going until someone is ahead. The Super Bowl uses these same playoff rules. For which Super Bowls have actually gone to overtime, see the Super Bowl records page.
Yes, a game can still end in a tie
This surprises people, so it is worth saying plainly: a regular-season NFL game can finish as a tie, a drawn game. It is rare, usually once or twice a season, and it happens when neither team pulls ahead inside the ten-minute overtime. In 2025, the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys played out a 40-40 tie. In the standings a tie counts as half a win and half a loss for both teams. In the playoffs, as above, it cannot happen.
Common questions
How does overtime work in the NFL?
If the scores are level after sixty minutes, the game goes to overtime. In the regular season that is one ten-minute period; in the playoffs, full fifteen-minute periods until someone wins. A coin toss decides who gets the ball first, and both teams now get a possession, so one lucky toss can no longer end it on the opening drive.
Can an NFL game end in a tie?
Yes, but only in the regular season. If the scores are still level after the ten-minute overtime, the game is recorded as a tie, which happens once or twice most seasons. In the playoffs there are no ties: the teams keep playing extra periods until one of them is ahead.
Is NFL overtime still sudden death?
Not fully. It used to be pure sudden death, where the first team to score anything won. Now both teams are guaranteed a possession first, so a touchdown on the opening drive no longer ends the game. Once both have had the ball, though, the next score does win it.
Where to go next
- NFL Rules Decoded: how the whole game works.
- Scoring Decoded: the ways a team can win it in overtime.
- Super Bowl records: including the Super Bowls that went to overtime.
Want it straight from the source? Overtime is Rule 16 in the NFL’s official rulebook, and the league’s Video Rulebook explains the rules with real clips.