The NFL has released a statement on the coin flip debacle that happened during the Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Rams game. During the coin flip Cowboys quarterback, Dak Prescott said the Cowboys wanted to kick twice before saying they deferred.

Referee Walt Anderson awarded the Rams the ball first, and also said the Cowboys would be kicking off to start the second half.

The NFL stepped in giving the ball to the Cowboys to start the second half, and according to NFL senior vice president of officiating Al Riveron, the league was allowed to do that.

“Well, it's specific to the rule,” Riveron said. “Under Rule 15 for replay, Section 3, Article 9, and I'm paraphrasing now, it says we can get involved, replay can, as far as game administration issues — downs, enforcements, things like that. So by rule, we can get involved. This is a game administration issue, not a judgement call, for example. And we have definitive audio that refers to deferring.”

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The video clearly shows Prescott saying defer and that was enough for the league to turn it over.

“If you look at what happened, you see that the Cowboys actually say three different things, and then we hear at the end where they say ‘defer,'” he noted. “So we go ahead and look at it. We pulled up the audio. We knew that I was going to have a conversation with Walt Anderson at halftime to make it right.”

There was some uproar from some who thought the NFL was setting a dangerous precedent by overturning the second-half kickoff, but the league got it right and that's what is most important in these types of situations.

The Cowboys beat the Rams 44-21 and kept control of their destiny to win the NFC East.