The Cardinals defeated the Packers Saturday night in a thrilling overtime game, and the coin flip preceding overtime was a spectacle of its own. After the game, Aaron Rodgers hinted that he felt his team got cheated.
When referee Clete Blakeman tossed the coin before OT, it somehow did not flip while in the air. Rodgers had called “tails,” and the coin landed on heads. The Packers immediately began protesting that it didn’t actually flip, and Blakeman decided to toss it again.
WTF? Did another coin flip? pic.twitter.com/xM3o8cKDia
— MarcusD (@_MarcusD_) January 17, 2016
You can see a closer look at the coin spinning through the air in this video.
Based on the NFL rulebook, Blakeman did not have to re-do the toss. A league spokesman confirmed to ESPN on Sunday that there is nothing in the rulebook that specifies that the coin must actually flip while in the air. Blakeman was within his rights to use his judgement in the name of “basic fairness,” but should he have allowed Rodgers to call the toss again?
The Packers were not given a chance to call “heads” or “tails” before the second toss, and the coin once again landed on heads. Rodgers later hinted that he would have changed his call to “heads” if Blakeman gave him an opportunity. Rodgers said he chose tails the first time because the coin was on heads when Blakeman showed it to him, so he chose the opposite. Before the second toss, Blakeman showed him the tails side of the coin, so Rodgers likely would have called “heads” based on the strategy he was using.
“Clete had it on heads. He was showing heads, so I called tails, and it didn’t flip,” Rodgers explained. “It just tossed up in the air and did not turn over at all. It landed in the ground. So we obviously thought that was not right.
“He picked the coin up and flipped it to tails, and then he flipped it without giving me a chance to make a recall there. It was confusing.”
Rodgers speculated that Blakeman didn’t give him a chance to call the toss the second time because he was “trying to avoid the embarrassment of what just happened” and flipped it quickly.
Of course, the rest was history. Larry Fitzgerald took over with two great plays (videos here) and the Cardinals advanced to the NFC Championship Game. Would the outcome have been different if Rodgers was given a chance to change his call before the second coin toss? I’m afraid we’ll never know.
