Need help from the pros - Can the winner of the
 

coin toss defer to the 2nd half in the NFL ??? thanks

I don't think "defer" is an option in the NFL.

It is not an option in the NFL.

Thanks, didn't think so but I wanted to get confirmation before I confront the loud mouths who insisted you could.

Semi-pro R
 

The Coin Toss Winner Has Two Choices ; Receive Or Defend A Goal. There Is No Deferral Option.

The third coin toss option of defering choice the the 2nd half does occur up here in the Great White North....think it's a metric thing....

They have 3 choices: receive; kick, defend a goal.

From NFL.com - Digest of Rules :

Coin Toss

1. The toss of coin will take place within three minutes of kickoff in center of field. The toss will be called by the visiting captain before the coin is flipped. The winner may choose one of two privileges and the loser gets the other:

(a) Receive or kick

(b) Goal his team will defend

2. Immediately prior to the start of the second half, the captains of both teams must inform the officials of their respective choices. The loser of the original coin toss gets first choice.

It's not really metric. They still have yards, but MORE of them! They can only count to 3 (for downs) but up to 12 (for players) and motion toward the LOS is allowed. They like FB but had to make a point that it would be different from U.S. FB.

Apparently, the "loudmouths" don't pay attention to the coin toss options the referee gives.

bob

Kick or receive is one choice.

I was referring to fbwhitehat's post that a team can only choose to receive or choose a goal.

They can also choose to kick. Choosing a goal does not automatically equate to kicking the ball.

I am replying to your post which stated there were three options. There are only two options:
1. Kick or receive
2. Defend a goal

THREE options. Kick, Receive, or Defend a Goal.

Bob

Look at Roy Gardner's post on Feb. 26. He quoted the NFL rule.

Specifically, it is in Rule 4, Section 2, Article 1. Toss of Coin

The last sentence of the rule states: The winner of the toss must choose one of two privileges and the loser is given the other. The two privileges are:

(a) which team is to receive; or

(b) the goal his team will defend.

REPLY: We really need to get some substantive discussion going on this board. Arguing over semantics isn't really productive IMHO. I see what the NFL Rule Book says, but has anyone ever heard an R on mike ask the winner, "Which team do you want to receive?" No...he asks the winner what he wants to do. So even though the rule book says there are two choices, in practicality, the winner is offered one of three choices. Let's move on...

No kidding. We would sit in here and argue about this for two more pages. Who cares??

If we are arguing semantics then depending what you call a "choice" there are either TWO or FOUR choices (but not three):

One definition would have TWO choices:

1. Kick or receive.
2. Defend this end or that end.

The other definition would have FOUR choices:

1. Kick
2. Receive
3. Defend this end.
4. Defend that end.

We wish we weren't arguing semantics. This was a 2 post thread if ever there was one. 18 posts? Absurd.

Only b/c the pertinent basketball seasons are over for me and I have plenty of time to nitpick.

The rule says: (a) Receive or kick or (b) Goal his team will defend.

My quote was from the NFL Rule Book. What is your source?

Does not the referee ask, "Do you want to kick, receive, or defend a goal"?

Bob

REPLY: Actually in the NFL, the R really never gets a chance to ask anything. The winner just tells him what they want, normally, "We'll take the ball." Then he looks at the other guy who points to the goal he wants to defend. And we're done...hopefully here as well!

As I pondered your koan, I wondered about the captains other choices: his breakfast that morning, regular or high-test and should he ask the cheerleader for her number even though he is married.

Perhaps that's why the rule book offers that he has two "privileges". His choices seem to be unlimited.

It's not that so much as that they kept some rules that were changed in USAn football, or if they changed them they changed them to a lesser degree. So a 4th down was added in USAn football only. USAn football reduced the number of players from 15 to 11 in one fell swoop; in Canadian football it was reduced from 15 to 14, then 12. Only USAn football shortened the distance between the goal lines from 110 to 100 yards. Only USAn football adopted restrictions on backfield motion.

Many of the changes in USAn football were also adopted in full by Canadian football, but later. A relatively tiny handful of significant rule differences were original to Canadian football.

Robert

I once heard that the US uses a 100 yard field because at a game once at Harvard there was not enough real estate for the larger field, and this new format stuck.

What is USAn??

It was me that brought up the metric issue, but as a joke. My point was to let the board know that the option to defer choice to the second half (the question that began this thread) was available in football north of the border and I’m sure it has nothing to do with metric vs. standard measure. It's more concerning the fall Beaver migration in Saskatchewan as I understand it.

With regard to the difference in size of the fields, and I acknowledge that it would never happen, but I’ve often wondered what those great NFL athletes would do with a Canadian Field (110 x 65 & 20 yd. end zones). The players have increased significantly in size over the past 30 years but the field has remained the same size…love to see them enjoy a little more real estate!

This has also happened in hockey, basketball, lacrosse. And baseball maybe too! I'd love to see 11 foot nets, and a larger rink for hockey and lacrosse. The US field should go back to it's northern roots to match the Canadian field! :P

The R is lucky if when he turns the loser of the toss is still there. Usually the losing captain gives some half hearted point in the direction of the goal they want to defend, and runs off. The captains never "line up" like in college or HS for the referee to make the final announcement. I guess the NFL players are big boys who don't need to be lined up anymore, but call me old school on this one.

In one OT last year Ron Winter tossed the coin, declared the winner, looked to the captain who gave the "receive" signal, turned and ran off the field. Winter turned to the other captain who had already run off the field and had to shout to him to get the goal option.

I need a life I know, but this is a real pet peeve of mine at the NFL level.

I've often wondered why the CFL didn't use "meter (metre?)" lines. That field is so big anyway, what's a little more?

:D

We do have an option for metres. 100 of them. We prefer 110 yards.

100 metres = 109.361 329 834 yards

110 yards = 100.584 metres

Remember that American & Canadian football ultimately derive from soccer, which was developed in England, which naturally used English units (yards) to measure their fields.

No, but you're close. Among the alternatives considered to legalizing the forward pass was widening the field, but the cement had been poured for Soldiers Field (The one at Harvard, not Soldier Field in Chicago -- or do I have it reversed?), and it couldn't accommodate significantly greater width.

The length was shortened to 100 yards later, when end zones were provided. Until that time, the amount of space allowed for the ball to be in play behind the goal line was just local ground rule -- theoretically until you hit a fence or whatever. Then it was decided to allow just 10 yards depth to complete a TD pass, although the ball could still be in play for other purposes behind the end line. Some fields, however, didn't have space to accommodate even 10 yards depth unless a little of the field of play was sacrificed, so that's what was done. (I don't think Soldiers was the problem at that time.) In old photos (or the rule book diagram), you can see they extended the chalk of the sidelines a little past the end lines, until the end lines were made field boundaries for all purposes rather than just pass completions.

Robert

Nope, sorry. I can go into more detail if you'd like, but the short story is that the only thing those games have in common is that they derive from England and/or Wales and are called "football".

Football Canada does have optional metre rules, but the CFL doesn't. Some CIAU and other amateur games were played under such rules in the 1970s, but they didn't catch on. Around that time Rugby Union switched to "metric", and later Rugby League.

I don't see the point. It's got to have an effect on play when you need 10 m to get a first down, your kickoff has to go forward 10 m, etc.; it's about an extra yard. It's not as if there needs to be conformity between a game field and the outside world; heck, they can use furlongs etc. And if they wanted to express things in meters, why didn't they make it 9 m, which is much closer to 10 yds.?

Robert

I'd like! I really thought I'd read at some point, though, that the beginnings of what we call "football" were made at the Rugby School, who played the game with much more contact than some other places. When the other schools changed the rules to outlaw such contact, the Rugby folks wrote their own. I believe I read this on Wikipedia (which is, admittedly, not an authoritative source) - at the least, it makes for a good story.[/quote]

I would have to say that such a move would be about as antithetical to the metric system as it gets. :D

Even that is disputed, in that people differ as to how much of their version of the game originated there and how much was taken from a Welsh version of football. Rugby may not have contributed anything more than its name to the game, or may have contributed a lot.

What I think you (or your source) may have had in mind was the attempt to come up with a widely played standardized form of football in England outside of the schools. Rugby School by that time had little or no influence on the course of development of rugby football, it having been taken up by clubs. Anyway, the clubs had fairly well standardized rugby, and other clubs had standardized another version of the game, which you might consider either soccer or a precursor thereof, depending on where you want to draw the line. But when it came to an attempt at a grand amalgamation, a compromise game that would merge both camps, the ruggers were swayed by a particular club which was really anti-merger and sank the merger by insisting that the compromise game have hacking (kicking your opponent's shins -- sometimes knocking them over with a violent leg whip) be legal under at least some circumstances. So rugby & soccer continued to develop separately.

To show how insincere that point had been, the ruggers outlawed hacking just a few years later, with no opposition from the club that'd ostensibly insisted on hacking at the time. (Even at the time of the merger talks, many or most rugby clubs played by rules disallowing hacking.)

Robert