It seems the overwhelming trend now when winning the opening toss is to elect to kick. My recollection of the 80s and 90s was that teams elected to receive. I’m not sure when this changed or why. Any thoughts on why and when it changed?
Also, is this maybe a Mandela effect where we are remembering history wrong (other fans I’ve asked recall the same thing in the 80s).
I’m pretty sure that it was BB who started this trend. My (admittedly sometimes faulty) memory is that he did it a couple times and Boston sports radio was up in arms about how dumb it was to let the other team score first and “set the tone”, then it became a “genius” thing that only he did, then everyone started doing it.
I’m not saying he is the first one to do it, but that he was the first to do it consistently and have success, leading to popularizing it.