(AP)Two coin tosses taking place on Friday morning will determine the final order of the 2012 NFL draft. The Carolina Panthers and Miami Dolphins will flip to see which team picks No. 8 or No. 9 in April's player selection, while the Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks will call it in the air (or beforehand -- thanks, Phil Luckett) to determine the No. 11 and No. 12 picks.
This simple process leaves many answered, and unanswered, questions.
What are they flipping with? Does the guy in charge stand in the front of the room and comb through his pockets for a 2012 quarter? Does he reach in all his pockets, pat them down in frustration and ask, "Anybody got a dime?"
According to the Charlotte Observer, the coins are specially minted for the occasion and feature logos of the respective teams on both sides.
Seriously? The NFL mints coins for a 10-second process that nobody outside a hotel conference room is going to see? That's like getting a Louis Vitton bag and putting the logos on the inside.
Yet it took a new collective bargaining agreement to give former players adequate health care.
Why did they wait so long to do this? The season has been over for 18 days.
The flips were delayed until the start of the scouting combine, presumably so every team could be in attendance.
This would be better if Bill Belichick was involved, right?
If only to see whether he'd win the toss and elect to defer to the later pick. That's totally something Belichick would do.
Why are they doing this anyway? There was no secondary tiebreaker after strength of schedule?
Since the teams are in different conferences, the usual divisional/conference tiebreakers don't apply. They probably could have come up with the order and lied to each team about why it was set that way. "Uh, we looked at the net touchdowns scored in non-divisional games played at night and refereed by a man with the letter 'E' in his last name." I think that's the eighth tiebreaker for the wild card.
The NFL Network is showing four days of the scouting combine. They couldn't find 10 minutes of airtime so this could be on live TV?
If you'd rather watch 21-year-olds in mesh shorts perform the vertical jump, more power to you. Me, I prefer the high-drama of a winner-take-a-slightly-higher-draft-position coin sweepstakes. Make it a live, five-minute segment, tweet when it's going to air, show the flips, bring in special coin flippers associated with each team (Tim Biakabutuka, Oronde Gadsen, Elvis Grbac and Curt Warner), show the toss and then have Deion Sanders conduct an interview with each coin. Perfect television!
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