The NFL is keeping its overtime setup for the 2026 season exactly where it was in the 2025 campaign: 10 minutes, one coin toss, and a possession for each team. The rulebook also keeps the same postseason model in place, giving clubs a familiar format whether the game is played in the regular season or later on.
That matters because the Packers and the Jets were tied at 17 after Jordan Love had a late chance to launch a game-ending Hail Mary and Kingsley Enagbare brought him down instead, sending the game past regulation. For readers searching NFL overtime rules now, that is the clearest live example of how the system works when a game reaches the edge of a tie.
Under the 2026 setup, overtime lasts 10 minutes and each team gets two timeouts. A coin toss decides who gets the ball first, and both sides will have a chance to possess it. Once each team has had the ball, the team with more points wins. If the score is still tied after both possessions, the next team to score wins. If the clock runs out and nothing has broken the tie, the game ends that way.
There is one wrinkle that keeps the format from being perfectly symmetrical. The kicking team can avoid the normal two-possession sequence if it scores a safety while the receiving team is on its first possession. Reviews in overtime will be initiated by the booth, another reminder that the league has built the period to move quickly while still preserving a path for both teams to answer.
The structure is not new. The overtime rules being used in 2026 mirror the ones from the 2025 campaign, and those same postseason rules have been in place since 2022. That continuity explains why the league did not change course for the new season even after years of debate over whether one possession should decide everything.
The recent evidence shows the format is built to produce a winner, but not always one. One game ended in a tie during the 2026 NFL season, and Week 4 Sunday Night Football between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys finished 40-40 as time expired. The season-opening NFL Kickoff Game, by contrast, has never ended in a tie, and the most recent Week 1 tie came in 2022, when the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans played to a 20-20 draw.
That leaves the same basic answer for 2026 games that reach overtime: both teams get a chance, the clock is short, and a tie is still possible if neither side breaks through in 10 minutes. For Love and the Packers, the missed Hail Mary chance was the doorway to overtime; for everyone else, the new year begins with the same rules waiting at the same threshold.
Nfl Overtime Rules 2026 keep 10-minute format, with one safety exception
