OT in the NFL

The owners are actually considering a change in the overtime format for this coming season after reviewing a study that shows that teams winning the coin toss won 62% of the overtime games last season. The proposal (that was ultimatly defeated) was to move the kickoff in overtime back to the 35 yard line (where it was before the 1994 season for all kickoffs). I think this proposal misses the point, I have the best idea, I offer it to the NFL free of charge.

It's clear that winning the coin toss before overtime offers too much of an advantage since they can win on the first possession on a field goal. I have they answer, they should play one more period and they should play to 7 points. So if a game is tied 27-27 after regulation, the first team to 34 would win the game, if neither team scores 7 points in the OT then the result at the end of the period stands (whoever leads wins, if it's tied its a tie).

This offers the elements of sudden death that any touchdown (with an extra point, talk about a high pressure kick) would end the game. However the days of getting a good return, and pushing the ball 30 yards to FG range and kicking on 3rd down would be over. Teams could still kick field goals under my proposal, but then they would also have to play defense. What this creates is the situration that a team wins and the game ends on any touchdown (a good element of sudden death), but teams can't lose games by simply giving up a field goal (unless it's 3 FG in one quarter, which would be very rare, but I think an okay result for an automatic victory), which I think are the two things fans are missing from the current strict sudden death games.

A couple downsides, there might be a few more ties if teams trade even field goals though overtime (downside only because for whatever reason American Sports Fans reject the tie as a result for whatever reason), I think that'll probably be the difference of a tie every 6 years or so now to a tie every 4 years. The other thing is that more overtimes would be longer and would probably have to go closer to 10-15 minutes to produce a touchdown instead of the 3 mintues the one drive games go (those are still possible if they end in TDs). This might make CBS mad because they have to push back "60 Minutes", Fox probably wouldn't care as they schedule the whole hour until 8et for "The OT" their postgame show so they wouldn't have much problem if the game were to run long.

I think this is a simple enough plan that offers the best of all sides, it would play more like 4th quarter football, than the quick current full sudden death game. I know there's football fans that read this, what are your thoughts.