The Denver Broncos' win over the Chargers on Sunday had one of the craziest endings in recent memory. There was quarterback Jay Cutler’s fumble that referee Ed Hochuli blew dead before the Chargers could recover. Then, the Broncos converted on a Cutler 4th-and-goal pass to Eddie Royal. And, of course, there was coach Mike Shanahan’s decision to go for two points and the win instead of just kicking the PAT and playing for overtime.

After the game all anyone could talk about was Hochuli’s blown call and Shanahan’s bold and unorthodox decision to go for two. But lost in all this is why Shanahan had decided to go for two.

Shanahan had planned his move well before the Broncos had scored the touchdown to get them within one point at 38-37. On Monday on The Dan Patrick Show, wide receiver Brandon Marshall said Shanahan had made the decision before the Broncos’ final drive even begun. Cutler made this known in the huddle before the first play of the drive.

Why had Shanahan already decided on the two-point conversion? Let’s just say defense had not been either team’s strong suit Sunday. The Broncos and Chargers combined for over 900 yards of offense and close to 80 points. Of the combined 21 drives in the game, 13 ended in a score and just four ended in a punt. Basically, Shanahan said, “You’ve just got a gut feeling sometimes.” Yeah, and that gut was telling you that you didn’t want to lose the game on the luck of the coin toss.

The 2-point attempt gave Shanahan the best chance to win. If the game were to go to overtime, the coin flip would have given one team a statistical advantage. But in going for two, the statistical advantage was on the Broncos’ side. Since 2003 the two-point conversion has succeeded 55% of the time in the NFL. And by the way, the Broncos’ offense was flowing so their chances were probably even better.

The Broncos preferred to take their chances with the offense they knew as opposed to the arbitrary toss of a coin. Since overtime for regular-season play was instituted by the NFL in 1974, the winner of the coin toss has won 53.4%. In fact, on Sunday the 49ers won in overtime against the Seahawks after winning the coin toss and hitting a field goal on their first possession of overtime.

The two games are actually fairly similar. The Seahawks-49ers game was also high scoring and it’s not surprising that overtime ended on the first possession. The chances are the same thing would have happened if the Broncos had forced overtime and Shanahan wanted to avoid that possibility.

Those in favor of the current system will argue that 53.4% is awfully close to half, so what’s the big deal? They will also point out that the team that won the toss scored on their first possession less than 30% of the time. But in 2007, 7 of the 15 games that went to overtime were won on the first possession by the team that won the coin toss. Another two were won on subsequent possessions by the winner of the coin toss. So, 9 of the 15 games were won by the team that won the toss - in the first two possessions. That means the winner of the toss won 60% of the games.

Granted, it’s a small sample size but ask any coach (except Marty Mornhinweg) whether they want to receive or kick in overtime and of course they will always choose offense.

The NFL does such a great job of tweaking rules on and off the field to keep parity and competition amongst teams but they have failed on the concept of sudden-death overtime. When a game is so close that it warrants overtime, both teams should have a chance to score on offense. Many have suggested adopting college football’s approach. In overtime in college football, each team gets a possession at its opponent’s 25-yard line. The team winning after each has a possession wins. If it’s a tie it goes into a subsequent overtime.

But the problem with this system is it can lead to absurdly long games. In 2003, Arkansas beat Kentucky in the seventh overtime in a game that lasted almost five hours. The NFL would like to avoid never-ending games that could cause viewers to miss much of (if not possibly all) of a subsequent game. But if each team started with the ball at mid-field and were forced to go for two upon scoring a touchdown that should curtail excessively long games. This is just one scenario that could be explored.

I don’t know what the exact solution is, but Shanahan’s decision to go for two instead of playing for overtime is a pretty telling sign that there is something wrong with the system. On the bold decision, wide receiver Brandon Stokley said, “It shows the coaches had a lot of confidence in the offense,” but it also shows they have no confidence in the NFL’s overtime rules.