NFL Offers Official Explanation for Cowboys’ Coin Toss Controversy

The Dallas Cowboys and their avid fan base were ready to cry foul in case they lost to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday afternoon.

During the traditional pregame coin toss, quarterback Dak Prescott originally said Dallas wanted to "kick it" before saying "we defer." Head referee Walt Anderson declared that Prescott had failed to properly defer the kickoff, and thus the Rams were set to receive the kick at the start of both halves.

The NFL eventually stepped in, awarding the Cowboys possession to start the second half. Hours after the game, the league offered their official explanation for the whole ordeal.

"Well, it's specific to the rule," said Al Riveron, head of NFL officiating. "Under Rule 15 for replay, Section 3, Article 9, and I'm paraphrasing now, it says we can get involved, replay can, as far as game administration issues -- downs, enforcements, things like that. So by rule, we can get involved. This is a game administration issue, not a judgement call, for example. And we have definitive audio that refers to deferring."

That's a ton of referee jargon in those few sentences. To translate, Riveron and his crew in the New York offices obtained audio which clearly showed Prescott said he wanted to defer for the second half. Since it was an error on Anderson's behalf, Riveron felt obligated to step in and overturn his ruling.

"If you look at what happened, you see that the Cowboys actually say three different things, and then we hear at the end where they say 'defer,'" Riveron continued. "So we go ahead and look at it. We pulled up the audio. We knew that I was going to have a conversation with Walt Anderson at halftime to make it right."

While it was certainly a massive botch by the on-field officiating crew, it really didn't matter, as Dallas blew out Los Angeles 44-21.

What this does do, however, is further add to the long list of acts of referee ineptitude in the NFL.