NFL fans infuriated at overtime rule as Falcons take win over Bucs in Week 5: "College OT is the way"; "Dumbest thing"

The NFC South has been a much-maligned division for the last two years but an overtime win for the Atlanta Falcons against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on their Thursday Night Football matchup set the 2024 NFL season alight. On a night when Matt Ryan was inducted into the Falcons' Ring of Honor, both offenses decided to pay homage to him with some scintillating offensive play.

Regular time ended at 30-30 after a field goal by Younghoe Koo with time expiring, after he had missed a couple of attempts earlier in the game. The end of the fourth quarter featured a fumble, missed calls, and a delay-of-game penalty with a second remaining, and hearts were pounding as the match went into extra time.

However, unlike the postseason when both teams get at least one offensive possession in overtime, regular season rules remain as they were before. Therefore, whoever scores first wins the game, and that places an inordinate amount of importance on how the coin toss goes. The Falcons won this one and chose to receive the football and scored a touchdown on their first drive.

That meant that Baker Mayfield and the Bucs, who had contributed to a great game until then, never got to take the field as they saw their defense fail to stop the opposition.

Fans were infuriated that a close game had to end this way and took to X/Twitter, to vent their fury:

Many people doubled down and some said that it ruined the spectacle for what otherwise was a great game and implored the NFL to fix it.

"The worst overtime rules in all of sports just robbed us of even more elite football," one fan said.

"Either fix overtime rules for the regular season too or don't have overtime at all. Garbage ending to what was a great game. Now it gets an asterisk and we all wasted our time awaiting unfair results," another said.

"I'm really about to lose another bet cause of shi**y NFL overtime rules," a fan added.

Refs miss facemask call that could have given Bucs win against Falcons on TNF before overtime

What will be even more infuriating for the Bucs is that they had a chance to win the game in normal time within the two-minute warning. Atlanta kicker Younghoe Koo threaded a field goal for the Falcons in the fourth quarter with the last action of the period to send the game into extra time. It was only possible because the score was 30-27 in favor of Tampa Bay at that point when he kicked it.

However, the Falcons might not have been in a position to pull this off if the referees had spotted a facemask on Bucs running back Bucky Irving on the previous drive. Had that call been awarded, Atlanta would have conceded a penalty, bringing their opponent into field goal range. A conversion there would have made the score 33-27 and then Kirk Cousins and the Falcons would have had to resort to a touchdown to win the game.

Bucs fans will leave the stadium tonight feeling doubly wronged: once by the referees and once by the regular-season overtime rules. It sets the plot nicely when the teams meet again this season in Florida for the return game of this NFC South rivalry.