Word: maras
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...coin-toss has gone on to win the game without the other team even getting the ball, according to the Elias Sports Bureau; overall, the coin toss winner eventually won 64% of the games. "That [kind of statistic] really sticks out," admits New York Giants co-owner John Mara, who sits on the league's competition committee. "It's too high. That's a pretty big advantage...
...Mara, the Giants owner, says the competition committee discusses overtime reform every off-season. In both 2003 and 2004, owners voted on a scaled-back version of the proposal outlined above. Each team would be guaranteed a single offensive possession, but after that, it would be sudden death, first to score wins. Not 100% fair, but a vast improvement over the current rules. To implement a rule change, three-fourths of the owners must agree with the proposal. In '03, just 55% of the owners approved it. The next year, only 22% jumped on board...
...These results are disheartening. Mara, who voted "yes" both times, has seen the potential harm of sudden death up close. In last year's NFC championship game, the Green Bay Packers won the overtime toss against the Giants. Although Favre threw an interception that led to a game-winning field goal for New York, Mara sweated it out. If the Packers had won without a New York possession, "I know how I would have felt," he says...
...Unfortunately, Mara doesn't sense any groundswell for change. "I think it will take something dramatic to happen in the championship game, or God forbid, the Super Bowl [which has never gone into overtime] for enough people to get concerned," Mara says. But why is the most decorated sports league in the land refusing to use some common sense? Mara's telling reply: "That's a fair question...
...fall's most promising import is also the most potentially susceptible to this problem. The premise of ABC's Life on Mars (Thursdays, 10 p.m. E.T.; debuts Oct. 9) is ludicrous but irresistible: New York City cop Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) gets hit by a car and does a reverse Rip Van Winkle, coming to 35 years ... earlier. Inexplicably trapped in 1973 (he awakens wearing a collar with the wingspan of a 747), he returns to his precinct, tries to get his bearings and eventually finds himself working on a case directly connected to the one he was working...