We want to kick it

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Altor

I thought about this after I posted, and it was a little simplistic, but my point remains. To answer your question, with my original rule change the other team doesn't get that option either. They can choose to receive or defend a goal. That does leave the possibility that this team chooses to defend a goal and now the team that deferred now has to choose to receive. So how's this as a compromise:

The option to kick cannot be selected until after the option of which goal to defend has been chosen.

But...why? Why any of this? Why take away an option, even if these days its application is mostly for a captain to hang his team?

The NFL took away the choice of kicking off by a team that was scored against, but strangely enough they did that in two stages: first abolishing the choice after a touchdown, then some years later after any score. Maybe they thought it more likely a team would want to kick off after having 3 points scored against them. But as far as I know, the other major codes still allow it, and so it is in Canadian football. I could see abolishing that option as saving the 2 seconds it takes to ask the captain, but what's the excuse after a coin toss?

But as long as we're discussing this, I'll add that I think adding the option to defer was a mistake. The funny thing is, years before NCAA adopted it (first major code to do so), I'd come up with the idea and thought it would be an improvement. But since then I've come to think it's a disimprovment -- I mean, why magnify an advantage given by chance? Why, in a game of skill, should the winner of a coin toss thereby earn any more than is necessary? Why should they get to choose which half they get first choice in?