Coin toss, explained: why Belichick fugged up

[TN05]

The coin toss is actually a very complex rule. If you win the toss, you have the following options:
1) Kick OR receive
2) Choose which goal you want to defend (teams switch goals following the 1st and 3rd quarters)
3) Defer to the second half (this was introduced in the NFL in 2008; you can't do this in overtime, because overtime periods are additional quarters, but never add up to a half)

Immediately after that, the team that loses gets to choose from the options that the winning team didn't choose. This means the following
4) If you choose to receive, the other team can only choose which goal to defend
5) if you choose to defend a goal, the other team can choose to kick OR receive.
6) If you choose to defer, the refs basically act like the other team won the toss; they get to choose between 1 and 2, and you get to choose between 4 and 5.

At halftime, the coin toss loser (or winner, if they deferred) gets to choose to kick or receive, or change goals.

Now, deferring is the standard strategy for most teams; some teams with a really aggressive offense like to choose to receive, though. If the wind is really atrocious, you might occasionally see someone choose which goal to defend, to get a wind advantage in the fourth quarter; you could also do this at halftime, though, so there really isn't a reason to start a game with it. Nobody ever chooses to kick. Why? Because it's a trap. If you choose to kick, the other team gets to choose the goal they want to defend. There is really never a reason to kick other than you wanting to get the wind... and by choosing you kick, you cede that option to the other team. The fact Bilichick either failed to understand this or fails to explain it to his players properly is beyond me.