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The NFL avoided a major embarrassment on Sunday when the league stepped in during halftime of the Dallas Cowboys-Los Angeles Rams game and corrected a wrong by the game’s referee, Walt Anderson.
In case you missed it, Dak Prescott told Anderson after the Cowboys won the coin toss that they wanted to kick. Prescott said kick a few times and then said the Cowboys were choosing to defer to the second half.
Well, Anderson didn’t hear the “defer” part and ruled that the Rams would receive the opening kickoff to both the start of the game and then to start the second half, which would have been ridiculous.
Fox showed a video during the first half in which you could hear Prescott clearly saying “defer.” Then during the halftime break the league stepped in and told the officials that the Rams would be kicking off in the second half. It was a great job by the NFL of stepping in and avoiding such a dumb thing from happening during the day’s biggest game.
But here’s the thing – why does the coin toss need to be so difficult? My colleague Steven Ruiz brought up a good point in our Slack chat on Sunday when he asked “why aren’t the options just kick or receive?” Sometimes the most simple questions are the best, and that one by Steven was pretty darn good.
Why are we messing with this “defer” nonsense when there really is just two options? We’ve made so many things in our lives easier over the years, why can’t we do it with the coin toss? Do we really need to have these officials screwing up something that is so simple?
Dak said the Cowboys wanted to kick. So if I’m the ref I’m like, “Cool, Cowboys are kicking in the first half, receiving in the second.” It’s not that hard. I’m not leaning in to find out if he said the “defer” word and then leaning in again to hear if really did say it. Instead, I’m moving on and getting the game started.
These NFL refs continue to prove they can screw up just about everything, now even coin tosses. Let’s do our best to make their lives easier, because they clearly need it.
Kick or Receive? Those are you only two options from now on.
That’s it!
NFL Week 15 Awards: The good, the bad, and the hilarious from Sunday.
Here’s my weekly gif-by-gif look at all the fun stuff that happened on Sunday. This week we saw a great TD celebration by Ezekiel Elliott, a special TD for an Eagles WR, and so much more. Push your work aside and dig into these awards.
Quick hits: Raiders fans get emotional… Eagles provide a bad beat… Urban Meyer to Redskins needs to happen… And more!
– Raiders fans had a rough and emotional ending to the final game in Oakland on Sunday. They even booed Derek Carr off the field!
– The Eagles’ meaningless TD as time expired on Sunday was one really bad beat for gamblers.
– Chris Korman explains why it would be such a beautiful disaster if the Redskins hired Urban Meyer as their coach.
– The Bengals sad onside kick perfectly summed up their sad season.
– Tiger Woods and Team USA had some fun partying and singing after winning the Presidents Cup.
(Follow me on Twitter at @anezbitt. It might change your life. Just don’t tell me about your fantasy team.)