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Not super interested in "old rule" comparisons, as virtually everyone agreed you want the ball first under "TD instantly wins," just as they did under "First score wins."

Well I figured the more data the better. How about we then look at only this year's games which were all played under the new rules.

For this year only there were 15 OT games that did not result in a tie. 13 non playoff games and 2 playoff games.
Out of 15, 9 were won by the team receiving the initial OT kick and 6 were won by the team kicking off. 60% to 40%

3 of those 15 were impacted by the rule changes and they are listed below.

The Jaguars beat the Raiders 30-29. Jags got the ball first and scored a TD. Raiders got the ball and scored a TD and the 2 pt attempt failed.

The Broncos beat the Commanders 27-26. Broncos got the ball first and scored a TD. Commanders got the ball and scored a TD and the 2 pt attempt failed.

The Seahawks beat the Rams 38-37. Rams got the ball first and scored a TD. Seahawks got the ball and scored a TD and the 2 pt attempt was successful.

The first 2 games are part of the 9 where the first team to get the ball won the game.

The last game was a part of the 6 where the 2nd team to possess the ball won the game.

This misses the point.  It's not about 2pt conversion success rate (what you are effectively measuring here); everyone knows that 2pt conversions are less likely to be successful than kicking extra points, yet they go for two anyway.

No, it doesn't miss the point. The point is they lost the game when they kicked off. That's the only point of discussion here. If you benefit from kicking off first, then it should show up in the results. If it doesn't then it's not much of a benefit.

You are failing to assign a value to the danger of giving the opponent the ball in a "Next score wins" scenario.

I don't know how to assign a value to "danger". All I care about is who wins, the team that kicks off in OT or the team that receives. If the team that receives the opening kick in OT wins more often than the team that kicks then from a purely statistical point of view, that's the better choice in my opinion.

And that's bizarre, because we know from 45 years of sudden death overtimes that giving your opponent the ball in a "Next score wins" scenario is extremely dangerous and undesirable!

Well for the last 5 years, "Next score wins" hasn't been the rule. What has been the rule prior to this year is if the team that receives the ball to start OT scores a TD on that possession, then that team wins, but if they kick a FG, which has happened a total of 18 times then the opposing team has a chance to tie or win the game. They have in fact won 5 times in that scenario, unfortunately they've lost 13 times, so knowing they had to score a FG or TD to either tie the game or win it outright hasn't helped them much.

Even after the rule change, the team to receive the opening kickoff in OT has won 9 of 15 games, so I'm not quite sure why think it's better to kick off. There's no data that supports that position. All the data supports my position which is that it's better to receive the opening kickoff in OT.

Well, yes: if you won a national championship like Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer, Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban, or Urban Meyer, then your college head coaching record is a big part of being hired in the NFL.

On the other hand, if your college head coaching resume is an overall losing record while never finishing better than 6th place in your conference, perhaps it's best not to mention it at all.

[the choice]

Ostensibly, the point of this thread is whether to choose to kick or to receive if you win the coin flip.
But now it seems like you're saying that it doesn't matter if you chose, and you're just comparing outcomes?

Instead of tracking who got the ball first and how many possessions each team had, what you should be tracking is what the winner of the coin flip chose, and whether that choice worked.  That's the actual variable this thread is about: the choice.

[ANY]

But if the team that won the coin flip elects to kick, that should be counted as a result that's affected by the rule change, since they almost certainly wouldn't have kicked under the old rules.

The major benefit of kicking is in making sure you get the first opportunity at sudden death, but if you're disqualifying games where the first team is held scoreless and the second team ends the game as "unaffected by the rule change," you're sidestepping the entire point I'm making.

I'm not disqualifying ANY games. I'm counting those games in my stats.

I'm merely saying whether the rule changes had a bearing on the outcome of the game. If the game would have ended the same way with the old or new rules then the rule change itself didn't matter.

And just to be clear I don't know who won the coin flip in these games. I couldn't care less. All I know is who received the OT kick and whether that team won the game or not. Whether or not the decision to kick or recieve was affected by the rules change, I have no way of knowing. Maybe they would have made the same decision and maybe not. I don't know. I don't care. That's not the point. The point is whether or not receiving the OT kick is beneficial or not. The stats over the last 5 years of OT games that didn't end in a tie say it is beneficial to receive the kick regardless if you were the team that made that decision.

But if the team that won the coin flip elects to kick (and then wins after holding the first team scoreless), that should be counted as a result that's affected by the rule change, since they almost certainly wouldn't have kicked under the old rules.

The major benefit of kicking is in making sure you get the first opportunity at sudden death, but if you're disqualifying games where the first team is held scoreless and the second team ends the game as "unaffected by the rule change," you're sidestepping the entire point I'm making.

When you say "the only games where the new rules affect the outcome of the game," are you including games where the first team fails to score, then the second team gets the ball and scores on their first possession, ending the game? Those should definitely count, as that's integral to the decision to kick off: you are guaranteed a possession, and if your opponent fails to score, you get the first possession in sudden death.

All OT games that didn't end in a tie in the last 5 years were included in my stats above.

What I mean when I say the "new rules affected the outcome" is if the rule change that was made applied to the game or not. If the outcome of the game didn't change based on the rule change, in other words if the game would have played out the same under the previous set of rules then the new rules didn't affect the outcome. Those games would have ended the same way under the old rules, that's what I mean.

So to answer your question, yes I'm counting the games where the first team fails to score then the second team gets the ball and scores on their first possession ending the game, what I'm saying is that game result didn't change based on the rule change. Under the previous rules if the first team failed to score and the second team got the ball and scored on their first possession the game ended. That didn't change. Only whether or not the 2nd team got the ball if the first team scored a TD changed. I'll give you a couple examples to enforce what I'm saying.

In 2021 the Bengals beat the Chiefs 27-24 in OT in the playoffs. This was before the rule change. The Chiefs got the ball first in OT and turned the ball over on an interception. The Bengals then kicked a FG to win the game. This is also how the game would have played out under the new rules as well so this game would not have been affected by the rules change.

Also in 2021 the Chiefs beat the Bills 42-36 in OT in the playoffs. This was also before the rule change (in fact it was the previous week to the above game) and in fact this is the game that prompted the rule change. The Chiefs got the ball first and scored a TD to end the game. Under the new rules the Bills would have gotten a chance to tie or win this game so this game would have been affected by the rules change. This is the whole purpose of the rule change, to prevent the game from ending on a TD by the team that received the OT kickoff, but it did nothing to prevent the game from ending with the 2nd possession of the game.

When you say "the only games where the new rules affect the outcome of the game," are you including games where the first team fails to score, then the second team gets the ball and scores on their first possession, ending the game?  Those should definitely count, as that's integral to the decision to kick off: you are guaranteed a possession, and if your opponent fails to score, you get the first possession in sudden death.

[playoff]

What does the data say only for the current rules?

There's only been 3 OT playoff games that have actually played under the current OT playoff rules.

The first was in 2023 (the year the rule was changed). The Chiefs beat the 49ers 25-22. The 49ers got the ball first and kicked a FG. The Chiefs got the ball and scored a TD to win the game. Note that although the current rules applied to that game, it wouldn't have change the outcome because the previous rules allowed that if the team receiving the opening kick scored on a FG that the opposing team would get a chance to tie or win the game which is what happened. So technically the rule change didn't matter in the outcome of that game, but the current rules did apply to that game.

The 2nd was this past weekend when Broncos beat the Bills 33-30. The Broncos got the ball first and punted. The Bills got the ball and threw an interception and then the Broncos kicked a FG to win the game. Again the rules change didn't actually matter as under the old rules the Broncos would still have won the game.

The 3rd was this past weekend when Rams beat the Bears 20-17. The Rams got the ball first and punted. The Bears got the ball and threw an interception and then the Rams kicked a FG to win the game. Again the rules change didn't actually matter as under the old rules the Rams would still have won the game.

There's only been 4 games where the current non playoff OT rules affected the outcome of the game because those were changed this year to mirror the playoff OT rules as far as scoring a TD on the opening possession of the game. The difference between playoff and non playoff is that the game can end in a tie if the score is tied at the end of 1 quarter.

The first game where the rules change did affect the outcome was this year when the Lions beat the Giants 34-27. The Lions got the ball first and scored a TD. The Giants got the ball back and turned it over on downs to end the game. So even though the rule change did affect the outcome as the Giants did get a chance to score, they didn't. The Lions would have won the game outright under the previous rules.

The 2nd game where the rules change did affect the outcome was this year when the Jags beat the Raiders 30-29. The Jags got the ball first and scored a TD. Under the previous rules the game would have ended, but instead the Raiders got the ball and scored a TD, but the 2 point attempt failed so they lost anyway.

The 3rd game where the rules change did affect the outcome was this year when the Broncos beat the Commanders 27-26. The Broncos got the ball first and scored a TD.  Under the previous rules the game would have ended, but instead the Commanders got the ball and scored a TD, but the 2 point attempt failed so they lost anyway.

The 4th game where the rules change did affect the outcome was this year when the Seahawks beat the Rams 38-37. The Rams got the ball first and scored a TD. Under the previous rules the game would have ended, but the Seahawks then scored and converted the 2 point conversion to win the game. This is the only time when a team was down by a TD in OT ended up winning the game.

What's interesting to note is that even though the rule changes haven't really changed the outcome of many games (no games in the playoffs and only 1 non playoff game), it has made 1 very big difference in that many teams are choosing to kick in OT if they win the coin toss. I don't really have the stats for who won the coin toss in these games, but I'm pretty sure the consensus under the previous rules was to take the ball unless the wind was really a factor in the game as Hoodie said above.

What does the data say only for the current rules?

The current rules started this season, and the data set is so small that you could hypothetically draw conclusions like "Getting the ball first and failing to score actually gives you a better chance of winning" or "Losing the coin flip gives you the best chance of winning OT."

Not super interested in "old rule" comparisons, as virtually everyone agreed you want the ball first under "TD instantly wins," just as they did under "First score wins."

5) There have been only 4 games after the rules were changed to allow the kicking team a chance to tie or win the game where the receiving team scored a TD on their 1st possession and of those 4 games the team receiving the ball first won 3 of the 4 games. 3 of the 4 losing teams did actually score a TD on their possession but only once were they successful on the 2 point conversion to win the game. Curiously no one has chosen to tie the game and continue playing but they've only had that choice 3 times, so it's pretty uncommon. 1 good result and 3 bad is not much to go on, but it still doesn't really indicate an advantage either.

This misses the point.  It's not about 2pt conversion success rate (what you are effectively measuring here); everyone knows that 2pt conversions are less likely to be successful than kicking extra points, yet they go for two anyway.

You are failing to assign a value to the danger of giving the opponent the ball in a "Next score wins" scenario.  And that's bizarre, because we know from 45 years of sudden death overtimes that giving your opponent the ball in a "Next score wins" scenario is extremely dangerous and undesirable!