INDIANAPOLIS — A few minutes before 12:30 p.m. ET on Friday, loudspeakers inside the Indianapolis convention center rang out with an announcement. The coin toss between the Minnesota Vikings and the Indianapolis Colts was about to begin and fans were invited to come and grab a seat to watch it. Needless to say, the buildup did not live up to the actual execution.
The Vikings and Colts flipped a coin to determine the draft order at picks No. 14 and 15 in the 2017 draft. The Vikings won, and Philadelphia Eagles receive Minnesota’s pick as part of last season’s Sam Bradford trade. (Here’s the finalized draft order).
The coin toss itself took place on the stage where players are doing the bench press in the NFL Combine Experience, so the public could watch.
The NFL made a big to-do of the coin flip, and even had a custom coin made for the toss itself. It was very fancy.
The actual coin in question pic.twitter.com/ge3V31FXuG
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) March 3, 2017
Fans watched as Vikings general manager Rick Spielman made the same joke several times about wanting to defer, and NFL Network’s Andrew Siciliano tried to convince new Colts GM Chris Ballard that this was, indeed, a very exciting experience.
Former Chiefs guard Will Shields was the official coin flipper, and he was instructed on the correct approach. Finally, Spielman said what everyone in the room was thinking: “How long before we flip this damn thing?”
Ballard echoed this sentiment. “I just want to flip the coin.”
And flip they did.
The Eagles will get the 14th pick in the 2017 draft, via the Vikings. The Colts get the 15th pick. Howie Roseman was very happy about it and awkwardly fist bumped someone in the audience to celebrate.
That was probably the most entertaining part of the whole deal.
“Very anticlimactic,” the lady standing next to me said when it was over, and she was right.
That wasn’t true for all of the fans watching. Diehard Eagles fan Mike Myselinski traveled all the way to Indianapolis from Philadelphia to bring his sons to the Combine, and he truly enjoyed the coin toss, even though he didn’t know in advance that it was happening.
“I didn’t know until we were standing in line, and I heard ‘Coin toss, Vikings and Colts,’ and I said to him, ‘That’s the Eagles’ pick! That’s the Eagles.’”
Myselinski and his sons, Luke and Jack, also got to meet Doug Pederson and Howie Roseman right after the coin toss, which made it special for them.
The NFL is pushing hard to sell the “Combine experience” to fans in Indianapolis this week. And like watching the coin toss, except for a few Eagles and Colts fans, it’s mostly been a whole lot of fanfare with very little payoff.