The Coin Flip

It was a nail biter right to the end of this one as Patriots could not complete the comeback against the Jets. It may have taken extra time but a coin flip controversy would put Pats fans in disbelief. But whose fault was the coin toss? Was it Belichick? Was it Slater? Was it Clete Blakeman?

Well here is what we know to start the overtime Slater went out to the coin flip. The Patriots called heads and it was heads. Blakeman (referee) then says “You want to kick?” to which Slater says “we want to kick, that way”. Slater would then go on to say “Hey, we won. Don’t we get to choose?” Blakeman would then turn off the mic and say “You elected to kick” end of conversation.

Did Slater speak to quickly? Or did Blakeman talk him into kicking? To me it sounded like Blakeman talked him into it. I have watched my fair share of overtime football games and I have never heard a referee ask if they want to kick. This is not the Broncos game form a few years back; there is no wind to play in your favor. To me you receive that ball and have Brady do what he does best.

Belichick went on to say after the game that “I thought that was the best thing to do” and that “There wasn’t any confusion.” But I am not buying it, I think this was done totally on accident and Belichick is trying to make this a non story by saying he called for it. Based on the facial expressions Slater made after the confusion there is no way it was over which way the ball was being kicked.

Slater said after the game “[Belichick] told us if we won the toss that we wanted to kick off.” He would then go on to say he would check with Belichick three or four times before the conference.

The whole team would go on to defend Slater and Belichick by saying they “agree with the call” and that they “discussed it beforehand.” But still I do not understand why Slater made such a big deal over it, that’s why I believable it is a cover by the team to make this a non-story.

I have reached out to multiple NFL public relations representatives and past NFL officials, we have not received any response yet.

Am I saying this coin toss controversy lost us the game? Technicality yes it did, but there was much more that that went wrong before this. The Patriots had their chances to win in regulation and could not capitalize. I give them credit for the fourth quarter comeback but they could not finish the job.

But all in all we can still get the first seed next week to clinch home field throughout the playoffs with a win over the Dolphins.