Congratulations to the Super Bowl XLIII champions Pittsburgh Steelers.

Now that the NFL season is over, the process for combing over the rules of the game begins. There has been a lot of scrutiny of the coin flip that occurs at the start of overtime periods.

Some folks don’t like it when a team wins the flip, marches down, kicks a field goal and wins the contest. They — especially CBS announcer Jim Nantz — say it is too arbitrary, particularly because field goal accuracy has gone up in the last five years, the field goal distance is longer and starting field position after kickoff returns has improved. The winner of the coin toss wins the game more than 60 percent of the time.

These folks call for options that get rid of the coin flip. They want simply to play another quarter with sudden death not starting unless teams are tied at the end of the extra quarter.

Others say get rid of field goals during overtime.

All those choices are wrong.

Fans like the arbitrary nature of the coin flip. It’s fair. It introduces chance into a highly charged atmosphere. That’s exciting.

The flip and the sudden-death aspect of overtime encourages teams to get the job of winning done during the regulation period.

The solution lies in simply changing the overtime kickoff spot. This would reduce long returns at the start of the overtime period and get the 60 percent figure down a little.

Besides, playing a full-length fifth quarter without sudden death only lengthens a contest that already is way too long because of commercials and video reviews. And football without field goals isn’t football. The NFL should never go in that direction.