Now and then, a tie is appropriate outcome

The NFL universe is ready to get uptight again — just like it did a week ago — and for the very same reason.

Something terrible happened Sunday: There was a tie! The Washington Redskins and Cincinnati Bengals, just like the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals before them, got locked together on 27 points and couldn’t free themselves before the clock ran out.

Shock, horror and a quick rush to the rule book. Get that thing changed. This is an American sport (even if the game occurred in London). Ties, unless it is that bolo tie that Philip Rivers sports on occasion, have no place.

But ... what if we took a deep breath for a moment and decided to take another tack?

What if we embrace the tie, wrap it up in a nice big hug and tell it that we appreciate it, welcome it and wait for it — that we want more of it.

If we are silly enough to consider extending overtime indefinitely, why not contemplate some other radical ideas?

Let’s ditch the extra period instead and just call it even after 60 minutes of game clock and twice as long spent on dead time between plays and commercial breaks. Or shorten OT to 10 minutes. Or wait until the officials make an error egregious enough for them to all be instantly red-carded by Commissioner Roger Goodell and the game abandoned at a stalemate.

Yet if you think about it, a tie is such a charming way for an afternoon of sporting endeavor to conclude. And England was the best place for it. All that effort and, at the end of it, everyone (except perhaps poor Dustin Hopkins, he of the missed 34yard field goal try in overtime) gets to leave without shoulders slumped or ego bruised.

The loud and opinionated and forthright among us hate ties. Of course they do. For them, everything is black and white. There has to be a winner and a loser.

But the modern world is full of uncertainty. It is full of weak souls, like the one writing this article, for whom the sting of defeat at the end of a troubled week in the workplace is a cruel blow. For those of us who can’t quite make up our mind who we want to win in a game in which we have a neutral stake, the tie is perfect. Even if it is our own team involved, a partial win is surely better than no win at all.

If that doesn’t convince you, how about the fairness aspect?

If a team isn’t good enough to make enough productive use of four quarters, four hours and an overtime period in which all you have to do after the opening possession is make a measly field goal to get the better of an opponent, why should it have a chance to rack up a W? The same kind of W, no less, with the same weight in the standings as that of a team that crushed a hapless opponent by a doubledigit margin.

After last week’s 6-6 Cardinals-Seahawks snoozer, there were calls for games to go as long as needed for a team to prevail. Why? Was four hours of tepid play not enough? Why carry on just so one unproductive offense can finally fluke its way to three points?

A deadlock can be beautifully appropriate. If the teams are bad, why should one of them be gifted a contrived win that is undeserved? And the flip side must be acknowledged: If a game is so ferociously contested that there is simply no way to separate the teams after 75 minutes, then should there have to be a loser just because?

Plenty of other sports enjoy a tie, soccer being the most obvious.

Given that global expansion is so fashionable, so much so that Josh Norman wears Manchester United scarves and sips tea, why not give a nod to our trans-Atlantic pals?

Admittedly, this impassioned plea won’t convince many. Yet surely it won’t be universally disagreed with, either.

Oh well, you can’t win them all, and when you don’t, an outcome of all-square sure beats losing.