The great Philadelphia Eagles coin flip tracker

Note: all data in this tracker comes courtesy of the fabulous pro-football-reference.com.

I care a lot about football coin flips. I think they’re very interesting.

We use something so very arbitrary to determine how football games begin, and those beginnings have a tactical influence on the rest of the game, and beyond. There are millions of alternate universes in which coaches select different sides of the coin, or defend different ends of the stadium, and entire seasons, and franchises, and careers, and families are all impacted in new and exciting ways.

I started tracking Chip Kelly’s coin flip track record at the beginning of the 2015 season, before heading back and looking at his three years on the whole.

The only problem is, I was never very organized with how I kept this information. I stored it in multiple tweets, and then different Word documents, and then different Evernotes. It all got very messy.

This post is going to be a living document, updating how Kelly, and now Doug Pederson, and then maybe someone else in the future, handles coin flips. I also plan on heading back into the archives and adding information for predecessors, as time permits. For now, we have three-plus seasons of data in here.

Please do not ask why I care.

"PDE" denotes "Pre-Deferral Era," meaning these flips were made before the NFL gave teams the choice of choosing or deferring after winning a coin flip. The rule was implemented in 2008.

Point differential is in parentheses.

DRAFT PICK COIN FLIPS

Howie Roseman: 1-0

REGULAR SEASON GAMES

	Win toss + Receive	Win toss + Defer	Lose toss + Defend	Lose toss + Receive
Doug Pederson	0-1 (-18)	3-4 (-2)	2-1 (+39)	2-3 (+22)
Chip Kelly	7-5 (+51)	8-6 (+23)	7-4 (+49)	5-6 (-49)
Andy Reid (08-12)	25-16 (+178)	12-16-1 (-68)	2-3 (-36)	6-5 (+83)
BELOW	HERE	ARE	PDE	STATS

And for those of you interested in splits, here is the season-by-season breakdown for each coach.

Doug Pederson

2016

Losing toss, receiving first: 2-1 (+23)

Losing toss, defending first: 1-1 (+25)

Winning toss, deferring: 2-4 (-7)

Winning toss, receiving: 0-1 (-18)

Chip Kelly

2015

Losing toss, receiving first: 2-4 (-55)

Losing toss, defending first: 1-1 (-3)

Winning toss, deferring: 2-3 (-4)

Winning toss, receiving first: 1-1 (+4)

2014

Losing toss, receiving first: 2-1 (+24)

Losing toss, defending first: 3-1 (+5)

Winning toss, deferring: 3-1 (+13)

Winning toss, receiving first: 2-3 (+32)

2013

Losing toss, receiving first: 1-1 (-18)

Losing toss, defending first: 3-2 (+47)

Winning toss, deferring: 3-1 (+16)

Winning toss, receiving first: 4-1 (+15)

Andy Reid

Deferral Era

2012

Losing toss, receiving first: 0-2 (-17)

Losing toss, defending first: 1-1 (-33)

Winning toss, deferring: 0-2 (-16)

Winning toss, receiving: 3-7 (-98)

2011

Losing toss, receiving first: 2-0 (+42)

Losing toss, defending first: 0-4 (-40)

Winning toss, deferring: 0-0 (+0)

Winning toss, receiving: 6-4 (+56)

2010

Losing toss, receiving first: 0-1 (-10)

Losing toss, defending first: 5-3 (+11)

Winning toss, deferring: 0-0 (+0)

Winning toss, receiving: 5-3 (+56)

2009

Losing toss, receiving first: 1-0 (+10)

Losing toss, defending first: 4-6 (-19)

Winning toss, deferring: 1-0 (+3)

Winning toss, receiving: 5-0 (+68)

2008

Losing toss, receiving first: 3-2 (+58)

Losing toss, defending first: 2-2-1 (+13)

Winning toss, deferring: 1-1 (-23)

Winning toss, receiving: 5-2 (+96)