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A World Where Coin Flips Are King

The NFL overtime is awful and entirely too reliant on a tiny metal object. You want proof? Just take a look at the results in the fifteen overtime games this season.

Where the Coin is King (8 of 15)
This is the absolute worst part of the NFL overtime system. A team gets the ball to start the game, they drive 60 yards immediately and kick a field goal meanwhile the opposing offense never sniffs the turf.

September 14th: San Francisco 49ers at Seattle Seahawks
The 49ers miss a 41 yard field goal to win the game as time expires, but fear not the coin flip is in their favor. The 49ers win the coin flip go down the field and kick the game winning field goal all while Matt Hasselbeck plans his next back injury.

September 28th: Houston Texans at Jacksonville Jaguars
The Texans kick 47 yard field goal with 1 second remaining to force overtime, but fail to win the all important coin toss. The Jaguars get two 20+ yard passes and within 6 plays kick the game winning field goal all while Matt Schaub takes a nap on the sidelines.

November 2nd: Green Bay Packers at Tennessee Titans
Rob Bironas misses a 47 yard field goal as time expires to force overtime, but fear not Tennessee the coin flip is in your favor. The Titans drive down the field and kick a field goal all while Aaron Rodgers is forced to watch highlights of Brett Favre gunsling.

November 2nd: Tampa Bay Bucs at Kansas City Chiefs
The Bucs down by 8 with 25 seconds to go get a 24 yard touchdown pass from Jeff Garcia to Antonio Bryant. After the Bucs hit on their 2 point conversion overtime and the coin flip is staring in their face. The Bucs get the toss and 11 plays later are kicking a field goal all while the Herminator is listening to classical music in his headset.

November 13th: New York Jets at New England Patriots
The New York Jets had just finished coughing away a victory when Matt Cassel hit Randy Moss on the sidelines with time dwindling. The Patriots had all the momentum in the word until... they lost the coin flip. The Jets took the coin flip converted on a long 3rd down move the ball into field goal range and bam game over 34-31, Cassel never touches the ball.

December 11th: New Orleans Saints at Chicago Bears
The Bears get the kickoff with 3 minutes to go down 3 following a Saints field goal. Kyle Orton helps lead the Bears down the field to kick a field goal to push it into overtime. Then, you guessed it the Bears won the coin toss drove down the field in under 3 minutes kicked a field goal all while Drew Brees sits on the sideline twiddling his thumbs.

December 22nd: Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears
The Bears just finish blocking a Mason Crosby kick to get the game into overtime. They are coming off a game which they won thanks to the coin flip against New Orleans, so what happens? They win the coin flip again and Kyle Orton once again leads the charge on the opening possession of overtime and gets the game winning field goal all while Aaron Rodgers is forced to stare at Wrangler jean commercials.

January 3rd: Indianapolis Cotls at San Diego Chargers
The Chargers kick a field goal with 31 seconds remaining to tie the game and force Peyton Manning and the Colts to settle for overtime after 4 plays. That would be the last time the MVP of the NFL touched the ball in the 2009 playoffs as he was forced to sit with a perminant Manning face and watch the Chargers win the toss and thanks to a few penalty calls score a touchdown to win the game.

Where the Coin is Prince (3 of 15)
As bad as never getting the ball is, its almost as bad to get an uneven amount of possessions. Just think about it for a second, if you force the opponent to punt and then you punt back you are essentially on equal playing terms, but in the NFL overtime you aren't you are actually a full possession behind.

September 21: Tampa Bay Bucs at Chicago Bears
The Bucs score a touchdown with ten seconds left to force overtime and win the coin flip in OT. They drive to midfield and stall but manage to pin the bears inside their 20. The Bears falter after getting a false start and are forced to return the punting favor. The Bucs drive the length of the field and kick the game winning field goal.

September 21: Cincinatti Bengals at New York Giants
The Bungles with 4 seconds left on the clock and driving decided to kick the overtime pushing field goal instead of going for a win. They were rewarded by losing the coin flip. They did manage to force a Giants punt but on their only overtime possession they went 3 and out. The Giants turned that punt 7 plays later into the game winning field goal.

December 22nd: Carolina Panthers at New York Giants
The Panthers and John Kasey miss a 50 yard field goal forcing overtime and then lose the coin toss. The Giants once again fail to score on their opening drive but once again force a 3 and out. The G-Men then get a Brandon Jacobs 2-yard touchdown 6 plays later.

Where the Coin Was In the Gallows (4 of 15)
Four teams bucked the trend this year and a lot of it had to do with taking penalties or sacks immediately. The other game had to do with an old man who was too tired to score points.

September 29th: Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers
After receiving the kick off the Ravens received a Le-Ron McClain chop block penalty pushing them to 2nd and 17. After not getting the 1st down they were forced to punt it away and Three Day Old Cheeseburger helped lead them to the winning FG 6 plays later.

October 12th: Dallas Cowboys at Arizona Cardinals
The Cowgirls get a 52 yard field goal to push the game into OT then win the coin toss, all is well. Too bad Romo gets sacked on the 1st play, they go 3 and out and get their punt stuffed into their face for a Cardinals td.

October 19th: New York Jets at Oakland Raiders
After Jay Feely kicked an improbable 52 yard field goal to force overtime the Jets took home the coin flip. Unfortunately they decided to play absolutely no offense and go scoreless on three overtime possessions. The Raiders on their third and final posssession get Sebastian to kick a game winning field goal from the moon, aka 57 yards.

December 14th: Tampa Bay Bucs at Atlanta Falcons
The Bucs were in their December swoon got two first downs but faded gave the ball away and the Falcons took it down the field and kicked a field goal.

Where the Joker was Wild (1 of 15)
The coin landed on its side and nobody wanted to win.

November 16th: Philadelphia Eagles at Cincinnati Bengals
When the captain and quarterback of your time doesn't even know there is only one overtime period you know you are in trouble.

Overall Coin Record 11-4-1

Comments

Anonymous said…
I respectfully disagree. A football team is made up of OFFENSE, DEFENSE, and SPECIAL TEAMS.

YOU ARE NOT GUARANTEED A CHANCE ON OFFENSE if you lack the defensive or special teams skills to get the ball back. The NCAA system screws teams out of kickoff returns altogether and can lead to wildly inflated scores...that's BS to me. All three phases are important to winning games, regardless of who gets the ball.

The coin flip at the beginning of the game affects games just as much...the Titans coach is on record for saying he should have chosen to go with the wind in the Texans game so he could have kicked a FG instead of having to go for 4th and 3.

The NFL system is fine the way it is...just look at your own synopsis of OT games this year. The AZ/DAL game is a great example, yet no one complained about Kurt Warner not sniffing the field because the defense and special teams won the game for the Cardinals.

You can't have it both ways.
Simon said…
You're making the point for me. A football team is made up of OFFENSE, DEFENSE and SPECIAL TEAMS. In 8 of the 16 overtimes this season 1 teams offense and 1 teams defense did not see the field. If all three phases are important to winning the game, that why eliminate 1 of the 3 in half the games of the season.

Teams make the playoffs for different reasons. The Colts have always been built on their offense and not their defense. By making it sudden death and giving the Chargers the ball you are stripping away the strengh of the team.

There's no way the winner of the coin flip wins at a 73% clip.
Anonymous said…
Any statistician will tell you that 15 games is too small a sample-size. Overall, since OT began, the team that has won the coin toss has won 52 percent of the time (this includes first possession, second possession, whatever). That's about as even as it gets.

If we switched to college OT rules, stat lines would start to look like this: Peyton Manning: 525 yds, 8TD, 1 INT... plus injuries would be even more wide-spread.
DeezeNutz said…
Easy solution: Make it "first to six".
Anonymous said…
Where did you get the ridiculous 52% stat? This says it's 64%:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1859490,00.html
ramon said…
I don't know where the anonymouse 52% stat came from, but if you actually read the time article that lists the 64% stat, you will see that it says the winner of the toss has won 64% of the games "since 2006" which I would think is still too small a sample size. I have no idea what the actual stats are.

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