Why Did The Cards Kick Off?

BAGIANT · Feb 3, 2009

It seems that a ton of money was bet on the Steelers to kick off.....or Cardinals receive the opening kickoff.

When the Cards won the coin toss, they decided to defer and kick the ball off to the Steelers. They probably should have taken the kickoff and try to score first. Instead the Steelers went down the field and scored first,.

I would venture to say that many dollarsd went down the tube with the Steelrs receiving the ball first. Has anything been mentioned as to why the Cards kicked off first? What were they thinking!

JakeT. · Feb 3, 2009

Two things...

#1, the Wisenhunt said in interviews he was going to defer.
#2, just a bit of trivia... no team in ANY Super Bowl has chosen to receive after winning the coin toss.

Buster · Feb 4, 2009

of course i had no idea who would win coin toss...however when az won and decided to kick,i thought it was a great decision..with as much talk as there was about pitt defense all week...i think they did not want first possession to set tone for the rest of game(pitt defense smashes them on 1st possession) turns out it may have happened anyway(by pitt driving down field),but there was no way of knowing...i still think it was right decision..

BAGIANT · Feb 4, 2009

Jake T. said:
Two things...

#1, the Wisenhunt said in interviews he was going to defer.
#2, just a bit of trivia... no team in ANY Super Bowl has chosen to receive after winning the coin toss.

I don't believe that #2. I've seen all the Super Bowls, and teams that won the toss almost always receive the kickoff. That stat is total bullshit.

Piranha · Feb 4, 2009

That prop started out somewhere -115 and finished at -200 or more. That would tell you a lot of action was on Arizona receiving the kickoff. All Vegas has to do is give some kickback to whichever team that wins the coin toss and tell them no matter what make sure Pitts starts the game with the ball first.

It's very simple and nobody gets hurt except the bettors. It really does not matter as much to which team getting the ball first unlike OT.

aiverson · Feb 4, 2009

stuckinvegas said:
I don't believe that #2. I've seen all the Super Bowls, and teams that won the toss almost always receive the kickoff. That stat is total bullshit.

Until this year, you couldn't even defer, so everyone received.

As for the toss, there was a ton of bad info out there. I saw too many people claim that Arizona always takes the ball, which was far from true.

As for some sort of "conspiracy", I find that extremely laffable. I am sure Whiz and company had discussed it many times and decided it was in the best interest of their team to hope to stop the Steeler offense and get the ball in good field position, plus get the ball in the second half to start.

It's not rocket science that it could have gone either way (accept or defer), yet some guys were calling it their Super Bowl lock and max bet. I even saw some services come out with it as their "only play of the day", not only that, the highest rated play they offer. Their clients lost the "big play" and only one of the day before the ball was even kicked. Stupid.