Arrowhead Pride
Have you ever wondered why Kansas City’s head coach likes to start the game playing defense?
If you’ve watched enough Kansas City Chiefs football games you may have noticed that if Kansas City wins the opening coin toss, head coach Andy Reid usually elects to “defer to the second half.”
But what does that mean?
According to the NFL’s Official Rulebook:
Unless the winner of the [coin] toss defers his choice to the second half, he must choose one of two privileges, and the loser is given the other. The two privileges are:
(a) The opportunity to receive the kickoff, or to kick off; or
(b) The choice of goal his team will defend.
Then in the second half, the other team may choose between the two privileges — unless
the winner of the pregame toss deferred his choice to the second half, in which case he must choose (a) or (b) above.
So deferring means allowing the loser of the coin toss to choose whether they will kick off or receive to begin the game.
Why would the winner allow the other team choose first? Because it wants to receive the ball first after halftime.
Reid explained the reasoning to reporters on Thursday.
“At the end [of the half],” he said, “you hope you finish with the ball — and then you hope you get to start [the second half] — and get an extra series in there.”
There’s a downside, too: the defense must stop the opposing team on its opening drive. Otherwise, the offense will start from behind. But according to Reid, once it all shakes out, the edge provided deferring isn’t insurmountable.
“It’s about 50/50 right there on the good and the bad of it,” he noted, “so it’s not a huge, huge thing if you don’t get [to defer].”
While the stats say Reid is right, we shouldn’t forget what legendary Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi once said.
“Football is a game of inches — and inches make the champion.”
In Sunday’s AFC Championship against the Buffalo Bills, the Chiefs will return to stacking up enough inches to collect an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl win.
