Travis Kelce Lauded Patrick Mahomes’s Clever Attempt to Take Advantage of Colts’ Coin Toss Blunder

Patrick Mahomes didn’t become one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL from his passing accuracy, playmaking vision and pure talent alone. He’s also one of the smartest there is, as the Chiefs quarterback showed during the overtime coin toss in Week 2’s win against the Colts.

On the latest episode of New Heights, Travis Kelce explained exactly how Mahomes tried to take advantage of the fact that Colts captain and safety Camryn Bynum didn't know the coin toss rules.

“Pat was locked in. ... I don’t even know if defer is something you can say in that situation,” Kelce said, admitting that he himself wasn’t too caught up on the rules.

“It’s not,” his brother Jason clarified.

“So by [Bynum] saying defer, the ref was like, ‘That’s not one of your options,’” Kelce continued.

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For a brief rundown, Bynum won the coin toss and told the ref he wanted to defer, meaning he wanted to choose in the second half whether the Colts wanted the ball or not. However, there is no second half in overtime. The only options are to receive or kick, so there was a bit of lingering confusion as the ref tried to clarify exactly what Bynum wanted to do.

“Listen, you’re in a big moment,” Kelce said, defending Bynum. “There’s a lot of eyes on you, not a lot of people are used to that much pressure to say the right thing at the right time.”

Here’s where Mahomes’s quick thinking came in. After Bynum said he wanted to defer (again, not an option), the Chiefs quarterback jumped in and said that he would like to kick (and therefore get the ball second in overtime). He made prolonged eye contact with the ref officiating the coin toss and even gestured with his finger to really sell it.

But the ref took pity on Bynum's appearing to not know the rules and asked the Colts captain a series of follow-up questions. Bynum finally said the Colts wanted to start on defense, which meant Indy wanted to kick off. So they did, and Mahomes’s sly move was ultimately thwarted.

“You’re supposed to say kick off. You can’t defer in overtime. If you defer, then it’s my decision. So I was like, ‘Then I want to kick off,’” Mahomes said after the Chiefs’ 33-30 win. “You’re supposed to say kick off, he said defer, so I said, ‘Well, I’ll kick off then.’ That’s the rules, I guess, but it didn’t work.”

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You can’t fault the Chiefs QB for trying.

On the podcast, Jason Kelce went on a bit of a passionate rant about NFL captains needing to know the coin toss rules beforehand, so as to not make any silly and avoidable mistakes.

“It’s actually been such a problem that at the coin toss now, the ref will not even—yes, the same thing that happened [with Bynum], because it’s happened so much,” Jason told Travis. “Guys f--- it up. ... If the coach is dumb enough to put you out there and you’re f---ing this up, that’s on you!"

Perhaps in the future, NFL captains who don’t know the rules or say the wrong thing during the coin toss will be penalized for their blunder. There’s a fair amount of confusing or constantly changing rules in the league these days, but players should probably know the coin toss ones by heart. Mahomes definitely does, and he almost got away with securing a strategic advantage for the Chiefs. In the end, Kansas City still found a way to eke out the win thanks to Harrison Butker’s walk-off 40-yard field goal—though this likely won’t be the last time we hear about a coin toss snafu.

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