When I was growing up in the 70’s, whenever a team would win the coin toss, they would elect to receive. Now, it seems that whoever wins the toss chooses to defer. Has something changed that makes being on defense first more advantageous?
First of all, in college football, teams didn’t always have the option to defer. You can’t do it in the NFL.
The reason for deferring is if you think the game will be relatively close, you can have the advantage of receiving the kickoff in the second half and if you manage the clock well, you can have two straight scoring possessions. The other reason for it is that the weather could change during the middle of the game and a team will want to take advantage of wind or rain.
How about nerves? Especially in the first game of the season. I’d rather have the defense out there causing turnovers or getting a big loss. I’d especially choose to do this if I was the coach of a heavily favored team.
It’s all part of the college coach’s belief in his unfailing knowledge of strategy.
Few, if any, teams elect to go on defense first unless the weather is horrible. If there were say, a 45 MPH wind blowing in one direction, you could opt to go on defense and make the other team play into that wind. They won’t get anywhere most likely and you’ll get good field position and you can build up an early lead.
You could opt to receive first if you think your offense is so good that it will go right down the field and score.
But waiting until the second half gives you more options and you can make a more informed decision. Ahead? Behind? Sunny? Windy? Rainy?
An NFL team certainly can defer, but generally the only reason would be very strong wind.
Of all NFL video games ever created, only Dynamix (later Front Page Sports) Football ever got the coin toss choices correct. They go like this:
The winner of the toss gets to choose either a) to kick or recieve, OR b) which goal to defend. So the winner of the toss says “we’d like to receive”, “we’d like to kick”, or “we’ll defend that goal”.
Basically, there are two decisions to be made, each with two choices. The winner of the toss gets to pick which decision they will address, and which choice they want. The loser of the toss gets first dibs on the second decision. (Typically, which goal to defend.)
Where it gets interesting, and where every video game gets it wrong, is that at halftime, those same two decisions come in to play, and the loser of the original coin toss now gets to pick which decision they want to address, and which choice they want.
So at halftime, the loser of the toss gets to choose either a) to kick or recieve, OR b) which goal to defend.
This all played out last year for the Jets. It was an exceedingly windy day, and the Jets won the toss. Herm Edwards (via the team captain) elected to choose the goal to defend. So the other team, given the remaining decision of whether to kick or receive, chose to receive. Cut to halftime, and now the other team gets first dibs, so they made the obvious choice and picked the kick/receive decision, and chose to receive again. (This may have been the Chargers Wildcard game. I’m not too sure which game it was.)
So if you defer in the NFL, 99% of the time, you’ll be kicking off both at the start of the game and at halftime. That’s why everybody elects to receive. (If the wind is so strong that nobody in their right mind would play against the wind, it’s likely the game would be suspended for the safety of the fans, as they do with lightning storms.)
Part of it comes down to a team’s strengths and weaknesses.
If a team has an awesome, smothering defense and a so-so offense, it may make sense to kick off first.
If you kick off first, and your powerful defense snuffs out the other team’s opening drive in 3 plays, the other team will have to punt from its own 6 or 7 yard line, and you’ll probably start your own opening drive close to midfield. That’s PROBABLY a better starting position than you’d have if you simply received a kickoff.
Yep. It is weather. It makes no logical sense to require the winner of a coin toss to make a choice that they feel is a disadvantage to them. The winner of the toss should be able to choose on any basis they feel fit. Even if the basis is what the team astrologer suggests.
I beg to differ. In the NFL, the winner of the coin toss CANNOT defer. The winner of the coin toss MUST make a decision. The loser of the coin toss gets the option in the second half.
This is from the NFL Digest of Rules:
http://www.nfl.com/fans/rules/cointoss
Deferring the choice to the second half is NOT an option in the NFL.
What you describe is “electing to choose a goal”, but not “defer”. Defer is a 3rd (5th?) option, available in NCAA, where you essentially just pretend you lost the toss. You get the kick/recieve//north/south options in the second half as opposed to the first.
Why do teams defer? IME, it is because coaches would like to make the most advantageous choice available to them in the 2nd half – when we actually have a score and we can see how the game is going. For some teams, simply getting the ball first (especially if there is a wind the other team can force you in to) is not a useful advantage in the first quarter. (but all this has been said)
And I don’t know that I’ve ever played a video game that truly gets it right. Which means when you end up with the weird situation where a team kicks off to start both halves, people are screaming “how is that even possible?!”, because it’s not possible in the XBOX universe.
I once heard a famous college coach say you should usually defer because then you’ll get the ball in the third quarter and the wind in the fourth quarter. (This assumes that the other team will choose the wind to start the second half, which is what’s normally done.)
Having the wind in the fourth quarter is a definite advantage if the game is close and a field goal might win it.
As mentioned above, the defer option wasn’t available in college football until modern times and still isn’t available in the NFL.
Interestingly, this came up on Saturday at my 10 year old nephew’s Pop Warner game - his team’s coaches apparently didn’t fully understand how things worked.
From what I was able to gather, “our” team won the initial coin toss. They intended to defer, but instead simply said, “We’ll defend that goal.” The other team then chose to receive the kickoff.
Come the start of the second half, “our” team’s coaches were surprised and dismayed when the officials turned to the other team and asked what option they wanted - and the other team chose to receive (again).
I overheard part of the conversation between the refs and the coaches - the phrase, “You should have deferred,” came up often. Basically, they (accidentally) burned their option on choosing a direction in the first half, and snookered themselves into kicking off at the start of both halves.
What they should have done to implement their plan after winning the coin toss was to tell the officials, “We defer to the second half.” The other team would then get the option, and (probably) choose to receive the first half kickoff. Our team would then choose which goal to defend in the first quarter. Come the start of the second half, they would have the first choice, and could select to receive the third-quarter kickoff.
At least, that’s how I understand things…
If you’re at a college or high school football game (that doesn’t have the coin toss miked, which are most of them), what will happen is that after the coin toss options are decided is that the referee first puts the teams on the proper sides that will use in the first quarter and will point or put his hand on the shoulder pad of the team that won the toss. Then he either gives a “receive” signal (pulling both his arms toward his chest like he’s catching a kickoff), a “kick” signal, or a “defer” signal (which is like signaling an incomplete pass). If he gives the latter, he then walks over in front of the other team and he gives the kick or receive signal.
All I know, is that in Madden, I always choose to Kick if I win the toss - I’d much rather have the opening posession of the second half than the beginning of the game.
You understand correctly. This is the most common mistake that leads to the same team kicking off twice (and can usually be avioded in Pop Warner and Jr High by the referee creatively presenting options so that choosing an end of the field doesn’t sound like a choice). I have had some kids say “We wanna kick!” which is probably the worst choice of all – the other team gets to start with the ball and the wind.
Then Madden doesn’t mimic real football, because in real football if you choose to kick off at the beginning of the game, the other team still gets first choice in the second half, and will receive again.
Related to this question, is there any statistical evidence whatsoever that correlates the winner of the coin flip with some actual advantage in the outcome of the game?
For example, if one analyzed all the 8-8 teams in the NFL over the last ten years, is there any chance that the 8-8 teams generally had a winning record in games in which they won the coin toss, but a losing record in games in which they lost the coin toss?
It looks like it hasn’t made a difference in the Super Bowl. Cite. But that probably isn’t a large enough sample size.
Well, if the “defer” tactic that’s available in college ball is the correct decision, then we should expect there to be a disadvantage to winning the coin toss.
As has been pointed out above, to defer is to pretend that you lost the toss.
PS: That disadvantage would only apply to NFL games, since Defer is not an option in the NFL.