The comments on the NFL make sense and are intriguing. They make it a fairer way to decide who takes the ball without altering the rules of the game, in that in NFL a team will at different times take the ball from different positions.

In football penalties are taken from the penalty spot. It isn't an option to take them from different places. That isn't making an arbitrary system fairer, it is fully altering the game. In general though the team winning the coin toss doesn't decide to go first, they decide to take the penalties at the end of the field nearer their most vocal fans. The team losing is then left to decide to go first or second.