Because a coin flip makes so much sense amirite. Hey, lets decide an extremely important aspect of the game using an object that has NOTHING to do with the game at all and has ABSOLUTELY NO SKILL involved with it. Genius. You know theyd be better off having the players sit down and playing a game of Stratego to decide who wins. At least in that the player has some control over whether they win or lose.
Nobody is asking you to throw Aaron Rodgers out there. You just take some speedy guys that would normally be your special teamers. An even better thing than a race to the ball would be having the guys play a game of 500 using a machine to launch the ball. That would result in less injury and still involve some skill in winning it, as the player would have to use positioning and leaping ability to be the first to catch it. Similar to the NBA jump ball.