President flips the coin for the 126th Army-Navy game and the coin does not flip.

OK. Saturday night. M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. The 126th Army-Navy game. Seventy thousand people in the seats. Cadets in dress whites. Midshipmen in dress blues. The President of the United States, on the field, midfield, between the captains.

He arrived on Marine One. Fine. He flew over the stadium. Fine. The crowd cheered. Fine. He walked to midfield. Fine. The ref handed him the coin. The protocol is unambiguous. The protocol is, in fact, the easiest part of the entire ceremony. You take the coin. You put your thumb on the coin. You flick. The coin rotates in the air. It comes down. Heads or tails. The ref calls it.

Buddy. The President did not do that. He did not. I am going to walk you through it because the tape is the tape and the tape is unambiguous. He took the coin from the ref. He held it in his hand for approximately one second. He then, in a motion that was not a flip, in a motion that resembled a short basketball pass thrown straight up, released the coin. The coin traveled vertically for approximately eighteen inches. The coin, on the way up, did not rotate. The coin, at the apex, did not rotate. The coin, on the way down, did not rotate. The coin landed on the field and bounced once. The coin’s orientation, on the field, was the same orientation it had in his hand at the start.

The ref bent down. The ref picked the coin up. The ref announced it was tails. Army won the toss. The President, standing there, pointed at the spot on the field where the coin had been.

The coin had not flipped. The coin had been moved upward and then dropped. That is not a coin flip. That is gravity.

I have run a casino floor for thirty years. I have personally watched approximately four hundred thousand coin flips. I have flipped a coin for the over-under on Sunday brunch with the staff for two decades. I am, in a small way, an expert on coin flips. The thing the President did on Saturday in Baltimore was, in technical casino-floor parlance, not a coin flip. It was a coin elevator.

That is fine. It is, in the grand scheme, a small thing. It is also, in the grand scheme, the second simplest physical act you can perform on a football field. The first is holding the football. The President did not, on Saturday, hold the football. He flipped the coin. The coin did not flip.

I am arguing with the television. The television is, on a loop, watching the coin not flip.