Bill Belichick just held a conference call with media members to dissect the team’s preseason opener against the Ravens. Some of the highlights of the call:
Deferring the opening coin toss. Asked about the Patriots’ decision to defer the opening toss Thursday night, and whether it was a decision made to highlight the NFL’s new rule, Belichick said he envisions deferring all the time. “I think it will be a regular occurrence and it will probably be what most teams [do]. The college coaches I’ve talked to have pretty much all told me that everyone pretty much always defers when they win the toss in college, it’s like 100 percent of the time. My guess is that it will approach that in the NFL as well, in time. Whether it does right off the bat, I don’t know. It would take some type of extreme conditions or an unusual experience to not do that if you win the toss. That’s our approach going into it.”
Brett Favre reaction. When Belichick was asked his thoughts on the Jets’ acquisition of Brett Favre, he said: “He’s a great player, one of the best players in the last couple of decades. He has just about every record you could have at the position he plays. It speaks for itself. It’s always a big challenge playing the Jets, even more so now. They have a lot of talent and I’m sure we’ll have our hands full every time we face them. But right now, that’s not at the forefront of our concerns. We have a lot of other things before it would come to that and that’s what we’ll focus on. But he’s a great player, there is no question about that.”
Young linebackers get in a lot of work. Belichick was asked about the performance of the team's rookie linebackers. "Some good things, some need to be better," he said. "I think Shawn [Crable] and Jerod [Mayo] both competed well. They played hard. Same thing with [Gary] Guyton and [Vince] Redd. I thought the play Guyton made on the punt was a real good effort play, showed his speed down there at the 2-yard line. Redd made a tackle on a kickoff and rushed the passer. Crable showed up in a couple different area -- special teams, against the run, rushing and had the interception. Jerod, the same thing. There were some positives, some good bright spots. ... I'm encouraged and glad that they had the opportunity to play as much as they did. I think it was a good experience for all those young linebackers."
Comment
Permalink
Email
What is the new rule regarding the coin toss?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong....
In previous years in the NFL, if you won the coin toss you had the option to either kick the ball or receive. The new rule is that you have the option of whether or not to defer your choice of kicking or receiving the football until the 2nd half. Essentially, if you win and defer, you force the team that loss the coin toss to decide to kick or receive, giving your team the option to make that decision to start the second half. If, for example, you deferred and the other team elected to kick the ball to you (probably unlikely), you would have the opportunity to again have the ball kicked off to you at the start of the 2nd half.
What is the new coin toss rule? Link anyone?
What is the new rule regarding the coin toss?
In college you nearly always defer, unless the wind is blowing strong. Then you elect to receive the opening kickoff, and then at the beginning of the second half your opponent elects to receive and you can elect to go into the wind for the third quarter, giving you the wind at your back for the fourth.
Defer means "to put off", so at first I thought he literally meant that they didn't do a coin toss at all, which made little sense.
Mike's answer sounds right. You are not deferring the coin toss, you are deferring your decision until the second half. This makes sense strategically, too, since you will have made adjustments during halftime that you may be able to exploit immediately in the second half.
I thought, though, that if you received the ball first at the start of the game, that you had to kick off to start the second (and vice versa). So wouldn't electing to receive on the opening kickoff do the same thing? Or am I wrong on the rule?
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
Patriots Twitter
ask reiss
Questions will be considered for Mike's mailbagbrowse this blog
by categoryINside Boston.com