Now that legal sports betting is widespread, decisions such as whether to “take a knee” on their one-yard line as a 20-point favorite, when winning by 18, with seconds to go, should not be up to the coach. He can’t pretend not to know the spread.
It is because sports betting is legal in so many places that this has become an issue. Announcers can now talk about the point spread in end game situations and coaches can’t pretend they don’t know that spread. My idea only pertains to situations where the coach’s decision can’t possibly determine the outcome as far as who wins. And that includes situations where the points scored may have relevance in team standings or as some sort of tiebreaker. The points need to be irrelevant except as to how they could decide whether a gambler wins or loses. There are two opposite ways to implement this idea and I am not suggesting which way is preferable. But it would either be to continue to play as if the outcome is not out of reach or to play in the opposite manner. I say there should be a rule to specify what is expected. I realize that certain situations are ambiguous. But there are also many non-ambiguous situations where coaches presently play it both ways. Eventually that will cause a controversy unless there is a rule that covers it.
In the above example, there is no impact on whether the coach’s team wins or loses the game, but let’s look at another scenario.
Let’s say the coach’s team was favored by 3.5 points for the national championship. They are winning 20-17 and have 1st and goal at the 1 yard line with 90 seconds left in the game. The other team has already used all of their time-outs. If the coach tells his players to try to score, there is some small chance that there would be a turnover (blocked kick, fumble, or interception) and his team might lose and cost himself millions of dollars, but if he instructs his QB to take a knee, he can run out the clock and not expose himself to any risk.