Right in the middle of the big show, Bob Pompeani and I started arguing about the National Football League's method of settling ties -- the process still ever-so-cheerily called sudden death.

By the big show, of course, I mean the "Subway Nightly Sports Call" with Pomp and me or Jory Rand and me, or Ron Cook and one of those guys, or perhaps Post-Gazette sports staffers Paul Zeise or Dejan Kovacevic and perhaps someone else who can be roped, er, invited on the CW between 10:35 p.m. and the 11 o'clock news.

Anyway, since the NFC championship game was decided by the sudden death of the Minnesota Vikings at the hands of the New Orleans Saints (although it looked like a slow, gradual, long battle with illness, five-turnover process to me), Pomp started in with some hostility on the fact that the Vikes were not permitted to possess the football in overtime and wondered aloud whether that bothered me, which it didn't in the least. He disagreed pretty loudly, and the next thing I knew, we were pulling each other's sweaters over our heads and pounding away on one another.

Or was that on "The View"?

It's hard to keep these highly rated shows straight, isn't it?

But really, owing to the fact that our show comes on live way past my bedtime, and also to the fact that Pomp generally has cogent, persuasive viewpoints ready to be delivered with high broadcast-quality energy and unwavering professionalism (he's impossible that way), the argument that good, old sudden death is no way to decide a football game much less a football game with a Super Bowl berth at stake might have sounded like it held sway.

(Even if you had the mute button activated, it wouldn't have been hard to tell who was arguing for what. C'mon, between me and Pomp, who looks more like sudden death?)

The thing is, I like the current system, because if you have to put your defense out there in overtime, and your defense can't prevent a field-goal drive with the game on the line, why do you deserve to win anyway? Save for the typical fourth quarter in Pittsburgh, defense is still part of football, isn't it? Further, the counter argument is that too much is riding on the coin toss that starts the sudden death overtime, but that's not exactly clear, you should know.

By my own usually suspect research, and I'm talking some 45 minutes of my life I'm never going to get back, there were 12 overtime games in the NFL in 2009, with only seven of them being won by the team that correctly called the toss. On top of that, only five times did the team that won the toss win the game on the first possession of sudden death. Your chances of winning the game by winning the toss -- and this is born out by prior research to a similar extent -- remains roughly 50-50.

You'll remember, perhaps, that the Steelers won the overtime toss at Kansas City, but their only overtime possession ended on a quick pitch to Mewelde "Minus 3" Moore. You'll remember, no doubt, that the Steelers also won the overtime toss in Baltimore, but the Ravens took it back with a "Pick Dixon" and won, 20-17.

Still, I'm willing to listen to alternative methods for overtime, even Pomp's, which was that both teams be required to kick off at least once in the overtime, or something.

Hey, I said it was late.

For example, I wouldn't be opposed to making sudden death even "suddener."

At the end of regulation, call the captains to the center of the field. Ask the visiting captain to call the toss.

"Heads," he might say.

If it's heads, the referee picks up the coin and says, "You have won the toss and therefore the game. Drive safely."

I'd further be willing to see an overtime shootout format, as in the National Hockey League, but without the sticks. There would be no scrimmage plays. Only one offensive player and one defensive player on the field. The offensive player picks up the ball at the 50 and runs toward the goal line. The defense player starts at the goal line and attempts to stop him. Rinse. Switch sides. Repeat.

Less interesting, I think, is the college system, partly because it can be interminable (Northwestern and Auburn's Jan. 1 bowl ended Jan. 4, for example) and partly because the rules for the college overtime read like the unabridged version of the standard apartment lease.

More easily adaptable is the not-always-terribly-interesting basketball format: five additional minutes of regular play with each team getting 30 timeouts.

But I'm sorry, Pomp. None of these things packs the emotional wallop and urgency of sudden death. If Brett Favre didn't like the sudden death rule, he should have come to midfield for the coin toss and threatened to retire.

Gene Collier's "Two-Minute Warning" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.