After posting our most recent item about the failure of the Arizona Cardinals to properly invoke the ability to defer the option to kick or to receive until the second half of their preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs, we went back and reviewed the official Game Book for every preseason game played this year.

(In response to some questions we’ve gotten, the magic words aren’t “we defer.”  Instead, the team that wins the toss exercises its ability to defer by choosing which end of the field to defend.) 

Of the 33 preseason games, the new rule has been used in only six of them.  (And, in another one of them, it was screwed up by the Cardinals.)

The Patriots used the ability to defer the kick/receive option twice, the Titans used it against the Raiders on August 15, and Ravens used it against the Vikings on August 16, and the Chargers used it against the Rams and the Cowboys used it against the Broncos that same day.

But we also found evidence of a problem with either the application of the rule, or the memorialization of it in the official Game Books.

In three of last weekend’s games (Vikings-Ravens, Chargers-Rams, and Cowboys-Broncos), the Game Book indicates that the team that won the toss elected to kick, and the team that lost the toss picked a goal to defend.  Then, for each game, the Game Book shows that the team that won the toss elected to receive at the start of the second half.

One possible explanation is that each of the teams pulled an Arizona, and the officials either didn’t catch it or let them get by with it at the start of the third quarter.   The other possible explanation is that the folks who put together the Game Books simply wrote the sequence of events up incorrectly.

Then again, it’s the preseason.  Hopefully, all of the teams, game officials, and scriveners will have this one figured out by the time the real games start.