Overtime rules in the NFL postseason have some important differences from the regular season. Here’s a rundown.
As always, overtime starts with a coin toss, and the team winning the toss can choose to kick, receive, defer or select which goal to defend.
But in the playoffs, both teams are guaranteed a possession — even if the team that receives the overtime kickoff scores a touchdown. If there’s a touchdown on the first possession, that team will then kick off and the other team will have a chance to score a touchdown of its own. The only situation in which both teams would not get a possession would be if the team on defense first scores a safety. In that case, the safety would win the game.
If the team possessing the ball second has not concluded its possession when 15 minutes run out, that team will keep the ball into the second quarter of overtime.
Unlike regular-season overtime, postseason overtime uses 15-minute quarters, and is played like a whole new game. That includes a two-minute warning at 2:00 of the second quarter of overtime, and the same timing rules at the ends of the second and fourth periods of overtime as in the second and fourth quarters of every game.
If time runs out on the second quarter of overtime with the game tied, there will be another kickoff, and the team that lost the coin toss will choose to kick, receive or defend a goal. However, there is not a full halftime intermission if the game remains tied after the second overtime (which has never happened in NFL history). The overtime halftime lasts only two minutes.
If the game is still tied after four quarters of overtime, there will be another coin toss and play will continue like it’s the first quarter of a new game, a game in which the first team to score wins.
Each team gets three timeouts per half in playoff overtime.
Postseason overtime introduces different strategies. Many coaches believe it’s better to kick off to start overtime so that they know what they need on their first offensive possession. And if the team that gets the ball first scores a touchdown and kicks the extra point, the team going second can go for two after a touchdown of its own to try to win the game right then and there.
Super Bowl LVIII in February of 2024 was played under the NFL’s current playoff overtime rules. The 49ers won the toss, chose to receive and kicked a field goal on their first possession. The Chiefs then marched down the field and scored a touchdown on their first possession, to win the game.
