The Patriots captain said he had to confirm Bill Belichick's game-losing coin toss decision several times
Bill Belichick and his New England Patriots gave football fans everywhere the best of all holiday gifts Sunday: a giant helping of schadenfreude. When the Patriots won the coin toss to start overtime, special teams captain Matthew Slater, much to everyone's confusion, elected to kick off to the Jets.
Surely enough, the Jets capitalized on their first possession, going 80 yards for a touchdown to end the game at 26-20 before the Pats even had a shot. The decision, which clearly lowered the Patriots' odds of winning, came from Belichick himself, CBS Boston reports.
"I asked [Belichick] three or four times to make sure I'm not the guy that goes out there, 'Yeah, we want to kick off!'" Slater said. "I asked him three or four times and he looked at me like I was concussed because I kept asking him. That's what we wanted to do. You never question coach's decision making. He's the best in the business and we trust him fully."
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To Slater's point, the Patriots are first in the AFC East, but perhaps even a head coach with four Super Bowl wins to his name should be questioned occasionally.
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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.
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