By now you probably know the story.
A thrilling AFC Divisional Round game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills at the end of the 2021-2022 NFL season led the league to change the overtime rules for playoff games, giving both teams a chance to possess the football. Previously, the team that won the coin toss could elect to receive the kick, and would win the game with a touchdown on their first drive.
The outcry after Josh Allen and the Bills lost that playoff game without getting a chance to touch the football in overtime led to the revised rules.
So as the 2025-2026 NFL Playoffs get ready to begin, let’s revisit those rules, because you never know when you will need to know them.
And it pays to be prepared.
What are the NFL overtime rules for the playoffs?
All playoff games that advance to overtime will follow these revised rules:
- If a game is tied at the end of regulation, the referee will toss a coin to determine which team will possess the ball first in overtime. The visiting team captain will call the toss.
- Both teams will have an opportunity to possess the football. This is the big change. Previously, as we saw in the 2022 AFC Divisional Round game between Kansas City and Buffalo, if the team that started with the football scored a touchdown, the game was over. Under the new rules, in that scenario, Buffalo would get a chance to match with a touchdown of their own, and if they did, the game would continue. Once both teams have had possession, the game then becomes sudden death. In addition, if the team that starts with possession scores and kicks the extra point to take a seven-point lead, the second team can win with a touchdown and a two-point conversion.
- If the score is still tied at the end of an overtime period — or if the second team’s initial possession is still in progress — the teams will play another overtime period. Play will continue regardless of how many overtime periods are needed for a winner to be determined.
- There will be a two-minute intermission between each overtime period. There will not be a halftime intermission after the second period.
- If the game remains tied after two overtime periods, there will be a second half. The captain who lost the first overtime coin toss will either choose to possess the ball or select which goal his team will defend unless the team that won the coin toss deferred that choice.
- Each team gets three timeouts during a half.
- The same timing rules that apply at the end of the second and fourth regulation periods also apply at the end of a second or fourth overtime period.
- If there is still no winner at the end of a fourth overtime period, there will be a third coin toss, and play will continue until a winner is declared.
- There are no instant replay coach’s challenges; all reviews will be initiated by the replay official.
What happened in overtime of Super Bowl LVIII?
Super Bowl LVIII made a little history under the revised playoff rules.
Super Bowl LVIII became the first playoff game under the league’s new overtime rules for the postseason, and those changes guaranteed each team a chance to possess the football in overtime. After the San Francisco 49ers kicked a field goal — more on that in a moment — Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs drove down the field and scored the game-winning touchdown on the final play of Super Bowl LVIII.
That made Super Bowl LVIII the first Super Bowl to see a lead change on the final play of the game.
Looking back at how that unfolded, many wonder if the 49ers should have approached things differently.
San Francisco won the coin toss, and made the decision to receive the kickoff, despite a prevailing theory that under the new rules it made more sense to defer. With both teams guaranteed a possession, knowing what you need to score to win the game offers a competitive advantage, similar to how teams in college want to start on defense in overtime, so they know what they need to do on offense to win.
Instead, the 49ers began on offense, and could only manage a field goal. That opened the door for the Chiefs to win the game on their guaranteed possession with a touchdown, which is exactly what they did.
Speaking after the game, San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan stated that the team had run through the various scenarios, and thought by starting on offense they would have the advantage if the game advanced to a third overtime possession, and sudden death.
“None of us have a ton of experience with it,” Shanahan said. “We went through all the analytics and talked to those guys. We decided it would be better getting the ball because if both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones to have a chance to go win it.”
The problem? The game never got to that third overtime.
What happened last season?
Last year, none of the playoff games advanced to overtime, so fans were not treated to another situation like Super Bowl LVIII.
Nor did they get a chance to see what, if anything, teams and coaches learned from how that game ended.
What about the 2025 regular season?
Ahead of the 2025 NFL season, the league decided to align the overtime rules for the regular season with the approach for the playoffs. However, that change was made “subject to a 10-minute overtime period in the regular season.”
Meaning regular season games could still end in ties, unlike postseason games.
Lessons learned from Super Bowl LVIII seemed to come into play during overtime periods in the regular season. One example comes from when the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys went to overtime back in September. Green Bay won the coin toss ahead of overtime but elected to kick, since they were now guaranteed a possession even if Dallas scored a touchdown.
Green Bay held Dallas to a field goal, giving the Packers a chance to win the game with a touchdown. But when their drive stalled deep in Cowboys’ territory, Green Bay was forced to settle for a game-tying field goal.
The game ended in a 40-40 tie.
Other example from this past regular season indicate that teams will defer in overtime under the new rules. In October the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams went to overtime, with Los Angeles winning the coin toss. Sean McVay and the Rams chose to kick, giving the 49ers possession first.
San Francisco settled for a field goal, but the Rams were stopped on 4th-and-1 to end the game.
In November the Carolina Panthers and the Atlanta Falcons went to overtime, with Carolina winning the toss. Quarterback Bryce Young declared “we want to kick that way,” which was incorrectly granted by the referee. A team can choose to kick, or which end zone to defend, but they cannot choose both.
But the Panthers indeed started on defense, forced a punt, and then kicked a game-winning field goal on the next drive.
One scenario that has not been tested yet? The impact of the two-point conversion. After Super Bowl LVIII Kansas City indicated that if necessary, they would have gone for two at the end of their possession to try and win, rather than kick an extra point and extend the game to a third overtime possession.
Should overtime arise in this year’s playoffs, will the two-point conversion come into play?
I guess we will have to wait to find out.
