WTF is wrong with sudden death? It's more exciting and typically leads to not having games last too long. Too much football is a bad thing, especially for the body. There is no good reason to play a bunch of over time periods until you end one with a team having a lead. It's a playoff game. It's not gonna happen that often. I'm just not a fan of sudden death...especially in a sport like football where possessions work the way they do. I prefer timed periods where they just play the game until the clock expires, like every other non overtime game. (Baseball is different, obviously, because it's completely different than every other major sport in how the "clock" works, so the home team sudden death thing is a very different animal.) Every time I ask this question nobody gives a good answer, and that continues. I just don't like it isn't an answer. Sudden death is good and fine and the way possessions work in football works just fine when OT comes along. You say yourself that it doesn't happen that often. This is another "solution looking for a problem". If you give NFL coaches the ability to play for the tie in shortened OT periods, they will do just that and games will go on forever.