What has suddenly happened in the NFL? For years and years, coaches given a choice to go for the win or the tie at the end of regulation opted to take the conservative route and go for the tie.

Even Titans’ coach Jeff Fisher, after his team infamously came up one yard short of tying the Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV at the end of regulation, said that he would have kicked the extra point and played for overtime. He indicated it would be unfair for him to put all the pressure on his players for one solitary play.

Yet after the decision by Tampa Bay’s coach Jon Gruden Sunday to go for a two-point conversion once an off-side penalty put the ball on the 1-yard-line, that now makes it two weeks in a row that a coach has decided to try to pick up one yard instead of kicking the ball through the uprights for an easy tie, knowing that if they don't make it they will almost certainly lose the game. Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil started it, Gruden followed it up. And both came out victorious.

Gutsy calls. Granted the teams were half the distance to the goal than teams normally are when lining up for a conversion (so you’d figure it would be a much higher percentage bet.) But gutsy still.

Yet it makes me wonder: would the coaches still have done it if the overtime format were not sudden death? That is to say, if overtime guaranteed that each team get a possession instead putting it all at the mercy of a coin flip, would coaches be more inclined to play for overtime?

I’m thinking they would.

And if that’s the case, it provides an interesting argument for/against changing overtime.

One problem with overtime is that it can be anticlimactic. Games that head toward overtime usually have a furious finish as one team rushes to tie it up in a two-minute drill. But then the game slows right down, because the team that wins the coin-toss now has plenty of time to work with.

But having the sudden-death format seems to encourage coaches to go for the win at the end of regulation, which maintains the climactic nature of the finish. Actually, it raises the level to its highest because it's do-or-die on one play.

As for the overtime format, there has been a lot of criticism of it in the past, and it crops up in particular when games are decided on the first possession in overtime. This was the case earlier this season when the Seahawks lost to the Redskins without ever getting to touch the ball. (Note that it was against the same Redskins that Gruden made his decision not take a chance in overtime.)

The league seems to consider the issue every off-season but votes at the annual spring meetings have always fallen against changing the format. Thus it is here to stay, at least for now.

But if a change to allow both teams at least one possession in overtime is ever adopted, as a number of teams -- including the Chiefs -- have lobbied for in the past, it would be interesting to see if coaches make the same decision that Vermeil and Gruden made the last two weeks, or go the conservative route and play for an equitable overtime.

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Speaking of conservative calls, the Eagles lost in dramatic fashion and though the talk has been mostly about the ill-advised decision to throw the ball with a six-point lead, I think the turning point of the game actually came a little earlier in the game. It was a more subtle decision by Andy Reid that may have cost them.

Near the Cowboys goal-line with just over nine minutes left Reid, who has never been accused of taking a conservative approach to the game, made a decision which head coaches make time after time but which always makes me cringe. Facing 4th-and-goal from the 2-yard-line and up by 10 points, he sends the kicking unit in.

Now that may seem like the standard decision but in my humble opinion, it’s the wrong one. If they go for the touchdown and make it, the team goes up by 17 points making it a three-possession game with less than 10 minutes left. That pretty much puts the game away.

On the other hand, kicking the field-goal turns the game from a two-possession game into… well, still a two-possession game. And that turned out not to be enough as the Cowboys scored two touchdowns to win by one point. Had the Eagles picked up those two yards that would not have been the case.

Now suppose you take the worst-case scenario and the Eagles don’t make the two yards for a touchdown. It would still pin Dallas deep in the zone leaving them with bad field possession, which is important in a two-possession game with nine minutes left.

On the ensuing kickoff after the field goal, the Cowboys returned the ball to the 33-yard-line. So the time it would have taken to gain those 30-plus yards -- if they would have at all -- may have been enough that the Eagles wouldn’t have needed to try to complete a pass for a first-down to end the game. Instead, they may have been able to simply run the clock down to double zeroes.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20. But it’s always about risk versus reward. If Vermeil and Gruden were able to gather that the reward of going for it outweighed the risk, Reid should have been able to as well.

And let the outcomes of those games be a reminder to coaches faced with a similar situation in the future.

Well I have to say that the reports of the Philadelphia Eagles’ death have been greatly exaggerated.

After the team’s second consecutive loss to drop to .500, a lot of people are saying that the Eagles are in trouble. Sure they are at the bottom of the NFC East (something they’re certainly not familiar with having won the division the last four years.) But it’s by just one game, and they’re only two games back of the division-leading Giants, whom they haven’t even played yet.

And most importantly, they have yet to play a home game against a divisional opponent. They have four more such games, and if they were to win them –- not that farfetched –- they’d be in the driver’s seat of the division. In addition, they have a home game against the Packers and a road game against the Cardinals, both of which are almost gimmes this year.

I can’t see them finishing less than 10-6 this year, and f they do manage to sweep the Giants, the division is theirs.

Having said that, the loss of Terrell Owens hurts. Really hurts. I’m sorry, but I won’t say their better without him. Although I have supported T.O. in the past, I’m not saying I support him now. They probably did the right thing in suspending him, and really had no choice.

But I’m upset with the Eagles that they didn’t have a contingency plan. It’s not like this is coming by surprise. They knew what they were getting into when they signed him. And to not have a plan to deal with the “T.O. factor” –- which means either doing as much as possible to make sure he stays in their lineup, or to have a backup in place in case he doesn’t –- is extremely unfortunate.

They now have a gaping hole at a position at which they’ve had a gaping hole for years which is why they went after Owens -– and why I wasn’t opposed to it, even though I really disliked him and didn’t like the thought of him being on “my” team –- in the first place.

It’s worse now because of the early season losses of Todd Pinkston, Freddie Mitchell and Correll Buckhalter. As good as Brian Westbrook is, I don’t know if he’ll be enough. Yes, I still think McNabb and their defence will prove strong enough to make the playoffs. But from there, they’ll be in trouble.

They needed to shore up that WR position before the season began, or make sure that Owens stayed there lined up on the right side of the field. The Eagles failed.

But so did T.O.

I just hope it’s not too late.