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If anyone has an understanding of the fairness of the National Football League's current overtime system, it is the Green Bay Packers, who in recent years have been involved in three overtime playoff games.

There was the wild-card game against Seattle on Jan. 4, 2004, when cornerback Al Harris made Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck - "We want the ball and we're going to score" - eat his words with a winning 52-yard interception return for a touchdown on the opening possession.

There was the divisional playoff game against Philadelphia on Jan. 11, 2004, known sarcastically as the "fourth and 26" game for the critical first down the Packers allowed on a tying drive at the end of regulation. The Packers lost the coin flip, forced a punt and lost after quarterback Brett Favre threw an interception on their first play from scrimmage.

And there was the NFC Championship Game against the New York Giants on Jan. 20, 2008, when on the opening possession of overtime Favre ended his Packers career with another interception, setting up the Giants for a winning, 47-yard field goal.

Those three games represent a big reason why the NFL has decided not to alter its current sudden death overtime format. Despite cries from fans and writers that the sudden death format favors the team that wins the coin flip, the three Packers games featured either a victory by the team that lost the coin toss or two possessions.

It is this evenness that seems to motivate the NFL's competition committee to remain with the status quo.

"There's nothing we're in a position to propose at this time," Atlanta Falcons President Rich McKay, a co-chairman of the committee, said in a conference call last week previewing the NFL owners meetings this week. "No club proposed a change. There's no unanimity within the clubs as to a change. I think overtime still achieves its major goal, which is it breaks ties."

If there is a concern, it's that there are some numbers to suggest that the team that wins the coin flip is starting to gain a significant edge.

Since 1974, when sudden death was instituted, the NFL reports that 69.9% of its overtime games have included possessions by both teams. And regardless of how many possessions there were, the team that won the coin flip has won the game 53.7% of the time.

That shows there isn't a huge discrepancy in the success rates for teams that won and lost the toss.

However, last season, the numbers skewed heavily toward the coin-flip winner, which has put the competition committee on alert. Though only seven of the 15 overtime games in 2008 featured one possession, the team that won the coin toss won the game 10 times (66.7%).

One reason is that the receiving team generally has an advantage because the kickoff is coming from the opponents' 30-yard line and probably will be returned 20 or more yards. If a team drives a mere 30 more yards, it can pin the opponent deep in its own territory with a well-placed punt.

And so the coin-flip loser generally is at a bit of a field-position disadvantage.

"There are some statistics that I say otherwise concern some of us, but at this time there will be nothing proposed and I don't expect there to be much discussion about the topic," McKay said of the owners meetings, which begin Monday in Dana Point, Calif.

A rather surprising aspect of the overtime debate is that the players oppose an overtime format where both teams must have at least one possession. The players consider it a safety issue. They fear becoming more susceptible to serious injury when tired.

"I would have to tell you that I myself was a little surprised at how adamant the players were about not wanting to change the current overtime system and agreeing with Rich's assessment that they say, 'Look, the excitement is there, everyone has got an opportunity to win this thing in regulation,' " said Ray Anderson, the NFL's vice president of football operations. "They were pretty adamant that extended play time, when you're playing 20 games, exposes you to injury risk."

Though the owners won't take up overtime, they will address these and other issues this week:

• Whether to expand the regular season to 17 or 18 games, thereby reducing the number of exhibition games.

• Changing the draft order rules so that the playoff teams are seeded according to when they are eliminated from the postseason. Currently, only the two Super Bowl teams are ranked based on their playoff finish. Everyone else is ranked by their regular-season records.

• Outlawing a wedge of three or more players on kickoffs.

• Allowing teams to challenge quarterback fumbles that are ruled forward passes and blown dead by the officials.

• How to proceed in negotiations with the NFL Players Association and its new executive director, DeMaurice Smith.

• Expanding the definition of illegally hitting a defenseless receiver to include forearm and shoulder shots to the head.