Tails Sometimes Fails
On Saturday, the women’s 100 meter U.S. Olympic time trials
were held. The race was supposed to be simple; the top three finishers in the
race would represent the United States in the event for the 2012 Summer Games.
Naturally, the outcome resulted in a clusterfuck. Two runners, Allyson Felix
and Jemeba Tarmoh, finished in a dead heat for third place (At first, it was
determined Tarmoh bested Felix by 0.001 seconds, but CSI: Miami concluded after
video replay that they finished at exactly the same time). USA Track &
Field (USATF) officials referenced their rule book to see what is to be done in
a situation like this and discovered the rulebook never accounted for a
situation like this. After spending the rest of the day throwing shit against
the wall, the USATF determined the tie-breaker would either be a coin toss or a
runoff, based on what was agreed upon from both runners. The winner would grab
the final spot, while the loser would be an alternate.
To reiterate, there is a possibility that the dreams of
Allyson Felix and Jemeba Tarmoh winning their first individual Olympic gold for
will be determined by a coin toss. It probably won’t come to that, but that
idea is insane. Track and field athletes train their whole life for the
Olympics, and you’d possibly want to crush their dreams based on how a quarter
lands. A lifetime of hard work and dedication for one flip of the coin doesn’t
make a whole lot of sense to me. One can argue that both runners will have
other opportunities to win a medal, whether in other 2012 events or future
Games, but we are talking about a sport where a tenth of a second can be the
difference between a world record and fourth place. You can’t waste any one
opportunity. It may never come again.
This isn’t the first controversy involving a coin flip in
sports and it won’t be last. On Thanksgiving 2008, the Pittsburgh Steelers and
the Detroit Lions were tied and headed into overtime. As the road team, the
Steelers got to make the call for the OT coin flip. All of America heard
Steelers RB Jerome Bettis call tails as the coin was flipped. When it landed on
tails, referee Phil Luckett awarded the coin toss to the Lions and all hell
broke loose. The Steelers argued unsuccessfully and lost on the first
possession of overtime. Luckett said he heard Bettis call heads first, then
immediately call tails. Per league rules, the first call is final. When the
replays were enhanced afterwards, it confirmed Luckett’s assessment. Per this
outcome, the NFL immediately created a rule where the coin toss was to be
called and confirmed prior to the actual flip. This NFL did a good job
correcting an issue where errors were possible.
When most people recall the 2009 NFC championship game
between the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings today, they associate that
game with Bountygate and the beating Brett Farve took. What people forget is
how it inspired a rule change. Since football fans were deprived of seeing
Brett Farve take the field in OT (little did we know he’d unretire for another
season and be accused of sending dick shots to sideline reporters), the NFL
changed playoff OT rules the following season. Instead of the previous
first-score-wins format, they added a caveat. If a team kicks a field goal in
the first possession of OT, the other team gets a possession. They determined
that sudden death format didn’t mesh well with the newer game (more accurate
field goal kicking, improved kickoff returns, better passing leading to more
spot-of-the-foul pass interference calls). The NFL decided to adopt these OT
rules for all NFL games earlier this spring.
I think the NFL screwed the pooch on this one. The biggest
argument was it wasn’t fair for a team to be beaten by a field goal when their
offense never stepped on the field. Hahahahahahah, bullshit. You don’t want to
lose the game on a field goal in the first few minutes of overtime? Tell your
defense to step the fuck up and keep them off the board. The NFL rejected
college’s version of overtime where both teams get an equal amount of
possessions from their opponent’s 25-yard line until the tie is broken. The NFL
felt it negated special teams and defense too much and had the potential to
turn final scores into something out of a video game. The college version seems
a lot fairer to me.
We have yet to see this rule in play as we only had two
playoff games go into overtime since the rule was created. In the first game,
Tim Jesus threw a touchdown on the first play of the game. In the second game,
both the Giants and the 49ers had several possessions before the Giants won on
a field goal. Was it fair the Steelers lost in Denver because Tim Tebow’s pass
beat Pittsburgh’s shorthanded secondary, who was without their starting strong
safety (who didn’t make the trip due to a sickle cell trait that can
life-threatening in high altitudes)? Uh-uh. Was it fair that the Giants won the
game based on the turnover of a backup returner in bad weather conditions? No,
but nobody cares. Life is pretty hard. Shouldn’t our football/gum be harder? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn8irnsmu9w)
-Written by Marcus Boyd
No comments:
Post a Comment