What Are the NFL’s Overtime Rules For 2024 Season? Everything to Know

With parity in the NFL at an all-time high, it’s getting tougher and tougher to predict the winners, as you can expect at least a few football games to go down to the wire each and every weekend. Sometimes, those games even go past the wire, and we get overtime.

While it's bonus ball for the rest of us, the NFL teams involved in overtime games have to dig deep, both physically and mentally, to play what can boil down to a lot of exhausting extra football. While there’s certainly plenty of tactics and strategy involved in overtime games, it all starts with knowing the rules… which are admittedly a bit complicated. So what are the NFL overtime rules for 2024?

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With Sunday Night Football back on NBC and Peacock, and close games pretty much guaranteed, let’s take a look at the NFL’s ever-evolving overtime rules, both for the regular season and playoffs.

Sam LaPorta #87 of the Detroit Lions dives into the endzone for a touchdown during the second quarter against the Denver Broncos at Ford Field on December 16, 2023 in Detroit, Michigan. Photo: Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

The current rules are intended to give both teams a fighting chance in overtime. While previous rules allowed a team to win the coin toss, receive the overtime kick off, and go down and kick a field goal for the win, nowadays, both teams get an opportunity to receive the football… well, unless the team that gets the ball first goes down and scores a touchdown. Then it’s game over, with the losing team not getting a chance to possess the ball. But if they hold the initial team to a field goal on their first possession of overtime, the second team gets a chance to go down the field themselves, and either kick a field goal to extend the game, or score their own touchdown to end it.

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Now, let’s say neither team scores on their initial possession. Then it becomes true sudden death play, where any score – be it a field goal, or touchdown, or safety – ends the game right then and there, no extra point necessary. 

If the overtime period ends in a tie, neither team wins, and both teams record a tie, which can make the playoff picture even more complicated at the end of the year when overall records come into play.

While nobody likes ties, in order to insure player safety during the regular season, we’ve learned to live with them. Alas, that’s not the case for the playoffs, as you have to win to advance to the next round (or to be named the Super Bowl champs).

Terry McAulay makes a call during first quarter actin between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during a preseason game on August 20, 2016 at EverBank Field in Jacksonville, Florida. Photo: Joel Auerbach/Getty Images

If the first overtime period expires, or if the second team's initial overtime possession has not ended, we get yet another overtime period. Whichever team lost the first overtime coin toss now chooses to possess the ball or selects which goal to defend… unless the winning coin guesser initially deferred that choice.

If no one scores, they just keep playing extra overtime periods until one team does, while taking a two-minute intermission between each overtime period. If there’s still no winner after a fourth overtime period, we get yet another coin toss, with play continuing until a winner (hopefully) emerges.

Catch Sunday Night Football on NBC and Peacock at 8:20 p.m. ET all season long. As always, each game will be preceded by Football Night in America starting at  7:00 p.m. ET, recapping the action of the day and looking ahead to the matchup of the night.