How does NFL overtime work?

Regular-season overtime is a single ten-minute period beginning with a coin toss. If the team receiving the kickoff scores a touchdown on its first possession, the game ends. If it scores a field goal, the other team gets a possession and can tie with a field goal, sending the game to sudden death, or win with a touchdown. If neither scores on their first possession, the next score wins. If the period expires with the score level, the game is a tie, which happens a few times per season and affects standings as half a win.

Playoff rules were changed in 2022 after a much-discussed divisional game in which one team never touched the ball in overtime. In the postseason both teams are now guaranteed a possession regardless of whether the first team scores a touchdown, and if the game remains tied after both have had the ball, play continues in sudden death with additional periods as needed, since a playoff game must produce a winner. Beginning in 2025, the league extended the both-possessions guarantee to the regular season as well while keeping the ten-minute period and the possibility of a tie.

College football uses a different system entirely, with each team taking alternating possessions from the opponent's 25-yard line, and requiring two-point conversions after touchdowns from the second overtime onward and alternating two-point attempts from the third, which is why college games can run to many overtimes and why the NFL format is comparatively conservative. The coin toss remains a subject of statistical argument because the team winning it has historically won a majority of sudden-death overtimes.