The Coin Toss (1 Viewer)

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Last year the NFL introduced the defer rule for coin tosses and I tried to read up on it and really didn't understand it. The situation seemed the same to me. It seemed to boil down to receive now or receive later. I finally read some more this year and realized that the coin toss is more complicated than I thought. It looks like the winning team chooses:

(a) receive or kick

OR

(b) which side of the field to defend

...leaving the remaining choice for the losing team. Then in the second half, the losing team chooses (a) or (b) leaving the remaining choice for the winning team. Now with the defer rule, the winner of the toss can choose which half to take their pick first in. The confusion comes in because apparently teams choose (a) almost 100% of the time.

Why bother to choose (b)? The only reason I can think of is that you think the weather is making one side of the field so bad that you'd rather choose that over receiving. If anyone ever chose (b) intentionally, the other team would probably end up receiving twice. Anyone know if this ever happened?

Or have I got this all wrong?
 
That's why you had to choose to receive previously. Now, you essentially have the option to kick off by forcing the other team to choose to receive. To my knowledge it has never happened. I've witnessed it in high school games, but never at a higher level.
 
Of course my above post just refers to the regulation time. There was the whole MM overtime debacle with Detroit, but at least I suppose he could make a flimsy case since it was just one decision (i.e. "one half").
 
Seems like we always Recieve the ball when we win the toss. We have scored 3 games in a row on the first possession. That definatly gives us momentum, and makes the other team think they NEED to score, because it seems like we score everytime we touch the ball.

4-0!!!!!
 
I agree. We're better with a fast start so we should never defer unless we fear the weather scenario I describe (not too likely).
 

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