{"id":323980,"date":"2025-12-01T11:45:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T11:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323980\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T11:45:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T11:45:11","slug":"referees-have-repeatedly-mishandled-the-overtime-coin-toss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323980\/","title":{"rendered":"Referees have repeatedly mishandled the overtime coin toss"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NFL\u2019s new overtime rules for the 2025 regular season<\/a> mean there\u2019s now a more complex strategic decision surrounding whether to kick or receive after winning the coin toss. The coin toss itself, however, is straightforward. Or at least it should be.<\/p>\n

But NFL referees have repeatedly mishandled the coin toss to start overtime this season.<\/p>\n

It happened again on Sunday night, at the start of overtime between the Commanders and Broncos. After the Commanders won the toss, captain Tress Way said, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna kick that way\u201d and pointed in the direction he wanted to kick.<\/p>\n

But the team winning the coin toss doesn\u2019t have that option. After choosing to kick or receive, it\u2019s the other team that decides which direction to go in. Referee Land Clark should have explained that to Way and then asked the Broncos which direction they wanted to go in.<\/p>\n

Instead, Clark simply asked Way, \u201cKick that way?\u201d<\/p>\n

Way repeated, \u201cKick that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark then asked, \u201cYou\u2019re gonna kick?\u201d and Way answered, \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark then turned to Broncos captain Bo Nix and said, \u201cYou\u2019ll receive, this way,\u201d pointing Nix to the side of the field that Way preferred. Nix did not object.<\/p>\n

Then Clark announced to the crowd, \u201cWashington\u2019s choice: They will kick this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not Washington\u2019s choice. Washington only had the choice to kick. Denver was supposed to have the choice which direction Washington would kick. It\u2019s possible that the Broncos wanted to go in that direction anyway and were fine with it, but Clark never should have said the direction was Washington\u2019s choice. It wasn\u2019t. It was Denver\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n

And this is not the first time an NFL referee has mishandled the overtime coin toss. Two weeks ago, Panthers captain Bryce Young was also allowed<\/a> to choose both to kick and the direction. Last week, Giants captain Russell Wilson won the overtime coin toss and said, \u201cWe want to kick the ball and we want to kick it that way.\u201d The referee did not correct him.<\/p>\n

At the start of overtime in Germany, referee Clete Blakeman wrongly announced<\/a> that the Colts were the visiting team and gave them the option to choose heads or tails. The Colts won the toss, Blakeman allowed the teams to make their choices, and then only after the broadcast went to a commercial did someone alert Blakeman that the Colts were actually the home team. Blakeman then called the team captains back to the middle of the field for another coin toss that the viewers at home never saw.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t like missing a holding penalty, the type of call that is impossible to completely eliminate. This is about NFL referees understanding the basic mechanics of how to run the game. Mistakes like this should never happen. And yet they\u2019ve been happening, over and over again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL\u2019s new overtime rules for the 2025 regular season mean there\u2019s now a more complex strategic decision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-323980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}