from Amazon
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Cake-cutting solution to NFL O/T
So nice and simple. This should be implemented right away.
One solution is usually associated with cake-cutting: one person divides, the other chooses which half to take. In a football overtime, the divide-and-choose rule would dispense with the kickoff and just give the ball to one side. The coin-toss loser would decide how far forward the offense would start—say, the 30-yard line. The coin-toss winner would then decide whether to take possession or let the coin-toss loser have the ball at the 30. The nice thing about these rules is that they would naturally adapt to the game’s changing dynamics. The current system, by contrast, seems to have been fair when introduced in 1974, but as field-goal kickers became more accurate, possession has become more valuable.
The auction idea is good too, but I think this makes more sense to an economist than to teams. As Phil noted, you’ll have problems with figuring out who really called it first, and with a consensus built around the 5-yard range as to the neutral expected value, you’ll be getting alot of boring decisions, of which will be too close to call.
(Hat tip: Phil.)
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