Clock management - part 34

As coach T would say, it's sure nice to have the victory while acknowledging all your issues you have to work on (and inserting the word 'obviously' and 'things of that nature' multiple times).

BUT, as usual, I continue to struggle with timeout usage and clock management at the end of the half and the end of the game. Because of what they've done to kickoffs (especially with OUR special teams play), you're typically starting at the 35. It doesn't take long to get in field goal range if you leave an opponent time to do so.

POV 1st half: You haven't stopped the Jets all game. You have 2 timeouts and the Jets have one. The Jets have been using their timeouts to stop the clock and you have 1st and goal at the 3 with 42 seconds left. You get stuffed up the middle for no gain and a running clock. Instead of letting the Jets call their last timeout or letting the clock run down to 15 seconds or so, YOU call yours right away. You pass to the end zone and score on the next play leaving the Jets 32 seconds. The good news is they don't score because they commit a 15 yard penalty. But the question is, how much time do you need to run a play from the 3 yard line? Why leave the Jets time for a potential field goal in that scenario? Other teams don't do that (although to be fair, several do and it drives me nuts when you're actually in the position to deny the other team ANY chance)

POV 2nd half: You're down 1 point. You have 2 timeouts and the Jets have 1 (you've now stopped the Jets once on defense, but still not feeling good overall). You've just completed a miraculous pinball pass that gets you in field goal range (although if I'm Boswell, I'm probably saying, hey don't ASSUME I'm gonna hit a 58-yarder) WITH a running clock that can take you to the 2-minute warning because the Jets aren't calling their timeout. INSTEAD, however, you hurry to the line and run the snap BEFORE the 2-minute warning. On the next play, you actually (and correctly) let the clock run down to 1:12 but now it's 3rd down instead of 2nd down, and if that was your strategy, WHY THE HECK DID YOU RUN THE LAST PLAY BEFORE THE 2-MINUTE WARNING???? You had a scenario that should have only left the Jets 30 seconds and no timeouts. Instead, they had 1 minute and 1 timeout. Again, fortunately, D made the play when they had to, but obviously (in coach parlance), they're not good enough to give the other team chances they shouldn't have.

I feel like too often we're still using the Magic 8-Ball to figure out game strategy at the end of games. Tomlin 'obviously' can't do it. I still wish they'd hire someone (for a pittance) whose ONLY JOB was to call timeouts and dictate when NOT to run a play before the 2-minute warning. I suppose this isn't the Steelers' biggest weakness, but it's been a weakness for 18 years and the Magic 8-ball isn't getting any better.

Still grateful for the win ('obviously') GO STEELERS!

 

I think at this point we have what we have concerning time management. This hasn't been a strong suit of Tomlin's at any point in his career, and if it were going to improve, it would have by now.

The "finer detail" things like challenges, clock management, when to go for it in 4th down situations, and personnel decisions have all been largely poor under Tomlin's management. The absolutely wild part of it is that when these things aren't good, teams tend to lose more close games than they win, and that hasn't been the case for Tomlin (98-61-2, 61.5%). Maybe we could be closer to 70% if he was better (I'm sure we've still lost games because of it), but losing close games and being a poor in-game manager usually go hand in hand and they don't in Tomlin's case. You can't even say it was covered for by Ben, since we've won a high share of these games even with KFP/Trub/Russ/Mason at QB... An interesting anomaly for sure.