NFL overtime rules explained after Ravens' 30-23 win over Falcons
Searches for NFL overtime rules spiked after the Ravens beat the Falcons 30-23 in OT and a Monday night game between the Rams and Bills also went to extra football.
Why overtime rules are trending
People are typing "NFL overtime rules" into Google because two different games went to extra football inside a few days of each other. The Baltimore Ravens beat the Atlanta Falcons 30-23 in overtime on Sunday Night Football in Week 5, and two nights later the Los Angeles Rams and Buffalo Bills, a game some had pegged as a potential Super Bowl 61 preview, also needed overtime on Monday Night Football.
What's known is the mechanics of the rule itself, and that's settled, not up for debate. What isn't in question is a result for the Rams-Bills game, since the available reporting only covers how the two teams got to overtime, not who won it. What happens next is more overtime football as the season rolls on, since any tied game in the final minute can trigger the same format.
How the current rule works
The regular season overtime format used in 2026 is the same one the NFL put in place in 2025, and it mirrors the rule the league has used in the playoffs since 2022. A coin toss at the start of overtime decides how the opening kickoff works. Both teams are guaranteed a possession, with one exception: if the team that gets the ball first commits a safety, the game ends right there.
Otherwise, it doesn't matter if the first team scores a field goal or a touchdown, or how many points they put up, whether that's 3, 6, 7 or 8. The second team gets the ball and a possession to match or top that total. Score more and they win. Score less and the first team wins. Match it exactly and the game moves to sudden death, meaning the next score of any kind wins, which is why winning the overtime coin toss carries a real edge toward getting a third possession.
What happens if it's still tied
Regular season overtime runs 10 minutes, and each team gets two fresh timeouts for the period. If nobody has scored enough to settle it inside those 10 minutes, the game goes in the books as a tie. That's not a hypothetical this season. The New York Giants and Washington Commanders played to a 27-27 tie in Week 5, the first tie of the 2026 season.
There's also no instant replay challenge system in overtime. If a play needs a second look, that review comes from the officiating booth, not from a coach throwing a flag. The league moved away from its old sudden-death setup, where the first team to score anything, even a cheap field goal on the opening possession, won outright, specifically because it let the team that won the coin toss end the game without the other offense ever touching the ball.
The games that put it in the spotlight
In Atlanta, the Falcons led late before Baltimore answered with a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie it 23-23 and force overtime. From there, quarterback Tyler Huntley led a late drive to force the extra period and then scored the winning touchdown himself on a 1-yard run, closing it out 30-23.
On Monday night, the Rams and Bills turned what had been a quiet game into a track meet, combining for 41 points in the second half. Kicker Harrison Mevis knocked through the tying extra point to send it to overtime, capping a stretch in which quarterback Matthew Stafford had led six straight touchdown drives to pull Los Angeles back into it by the end of regulation.
Facts per Yahoo Sports, Heavy.com, ESPN box score. Opinion is the taproom's.