The Associated Press

NEW YORK - The NFL has chosen one proposal for changing its overtime rule: allowing each team at least one possession if a game is tied after regulation.

Whether the league adopts the change at its annual meeting in Phoenix next week remains a big question.

"I can't make a prediction on that. It'll be close," Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay said Wednesday after presiding over two weeks of competition committee meetings that ended with members split on the issue.

The pressure to change overtime, which has been in effect since 1974, accelerated last season after teams that had the ball first won 10 of the record 25 overtime games played - or 40 percent. But most of the league's coaches have said they'd prefer to stick with the current system.

McKay said the pressure for change goes back some time, noting that since 1994, the percentage of teams winning on the first possession has escalated for several reasons. Among them: more accurate field goal kickers and the use of a kicking ball that has made kickoffs shorter and given receiving teams better field position.

McKay said the committee received dozens of proposals from fans, teams and the media. But he said it quickly threw out all but the two-possession rule as impractical or too complicated.

That rule would give each team at least one possession. If the game is still tied after each team has the ball once, then the game will revert to the sudden-death rule.

The debate over overtime probably will be the most contested item on the agenda at the meetings.

But the owners also will put a major emphasis on minority hiring of coaches and top executives.

It's also possible the diversity committee could rule on whether any penalty will be applied to the Detroit Lions, who failed to meet new guidelines by not interviewing a minority candidate before hiring Steve Mariucci as their coach. The Lions have said five black candidates refused interviews.

Also on the agenda is a proposal by the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs to add two more teams to the playoffs. McKay said he didn't think that would have much chance to be approved until next year, after another season with the new eight-division format that went into effect in 2002.

The teams also will consider a proposal by Cleveland to give another challenge to a team that wins a replay challenge. Currently, a team gets two challenges per game, with the possibility of extras in the final two minutes of each half, when a replay official makes the challenge.

One thing that won't happen is the awarding of any future Super Bowls - they are set through 2006, which will cap the 2005 season. League vice president Joe Browne said the 2007 game is likely to be awarded at the May meetings in Philadelphia, and probably will go to a Florida team.