Monday night’s 49ers-Seahawks game was like Thanksgiving — a sure-fire feast with lots of leftovers.
Chock-a-block with big plays and stunning turning points, it didn’t want for thrills and chills. In fact there was so much to digest you might have missed the most the most usual play of the day:
The coin toss before overtime. Check it out:
— KNBR (@KNBR) November 12, 2019
The good thing about this five-alarm gaffe is that it did not decide the outcome of the game. It’s for entertainment only.
Both teams possessed the ball in OT (believe it or not, that’s not a requirement in NFL overtime games). Both teams got off field goal attempts. No matter your allegiance, you would be hard-pressed to make a case that the Seahawks didn’t deserve this victory.
So let’s hone in on that coin toss, shall we? Try to follow the bouncing coin.
“What’s your call?” referee Alex Kemp asks Seattle’s Geno Smith.
“Tails,” Smith says.
“Your call is heads,” Kemp says. “It is a heads. you won the toss. You want the ball?”
Kudos to Smith’s poker face. He took the gift and ran with it before Richard Sherman, representing the 49ers, could file a grievance.
There will be a new rule instituted during the NFL offseason, by the way. How do we know that? Because that’s what happened the last time an NFL official bollixed a coin flip. Surely you remember Phil Luckett.
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Interesting in that the participants in Monday’s coin toss reacted with a resounding, “Whatever.” Not so Jerome Bettis 21 years ago. The Bus was steamed.
The NFL’s answer to that flub was to have players call heads/tails while the coin is in the referee’s hand instead of the time-tested “Call it in the air.”
What will the league do next? Three suggestions:
1. Scrap the coin toss for roshambo
2. Beer pong
3. And spit for distance
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