Did we start calling our timeouts too early?

We called TO #2 at 3:30 on second and 9 at the 17. At the time, I thought it was too early and should have waited until just before the 2 minute warning.

Comments?

No we didn't. You start calling them thinking the defense is going to stop them. We also started calling them as soon as they got in gimme field goal range.

I'm not sure how waiting to call them until after the 2 min warning is going to help things. The issue wasn't when we called timeouts. The issue was not stopping them on 3rd down.

given that our defense is one of the best in the NFL in the red-zone, I would have thought that we could have stopped them twice and force the FG with around 3.15-3.20 left to go. Given that we had already forced 11 third downs and allowed just 4 conversions - 2 of which were on 3rd and 1, I would have felt confident in getting the ball back.
We should never have lost the 3rd and 7 that Kaepernick converted - they were never ever going to risk an incompletion and stopping the clock, so all should have been keyed in on stopping Kaepernick once he didn't hand off.

That is far more important than calling timeouts too early. That said, I would have have called the first one on third down, as a 2nd down conversion would have still allowed the Niners to run off the clock past the 2 minute warning, and even if they didn't convert, but left themselves with a 3rd and short, you'd be thinking - worst case scenario we have to use two timeouts when they convert their third and short, but at least that leaves us with over a minute with the ball, but if they fail to convert, we can stop the clock for the FG and then have a timeout to use when we try and drive back up the field, so don't have to worry about throwing to the sidelines.
The thing that most annoyed me was that the Niners were able to run down 39 seconds of clock before the 2 minute warning gave them a free timeout breath

Hawks46":1lygwdwa said:

No we didn't. You start calling them thinking the defense is going to stop them. We also started calling them as soon as they got in gimme field goal range.

I'm not sure how waiting to call them until after the 2 min warning is going to help things. The issue wasn't when we called timeouts. The issue was not stopping them on 3rd down.

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It was 2nd and 9 at the 17 with 3:30 remaining, or 90 seconds ahead of the 2 minute warning, meaning they would have had to run at least two more plays ahead of the automatic clock stoppage, bringing them to 4th down. If we hold them, we force a FG attempt and have a little under 2 minutes to get into FG range with two timeouts after the ensuing kickoff.

Jf they had gotten the first down as they eventually did, it would have had to have come ahead of the two minute warning, we call our timeout right after they get their first down, take advantage of the automatic clock stoppage on second down, use our third timeout on third down. We would have ended up with around a minute left to play after a successful FG attempt and ensuing kickoff.

As it was, Pete was gambling that we could stop them from gaining 9 yards on two plays, something that was certainly not a given as they had run the ball reasonably well throughout most of the game. Had we stopped them, we would have had just over 3 minutes and no timeouts in his best case scenario. In the alternate best case scenario, we would get the ball back with around 1:50 and both timeouts, not a lot of difference. But the risk of failure is quite different, getting the ball back with just over a minute to play and no timeouts vs. 20 seconds and no timeouts.

Yes, that time out taken in the third quarter of a close and tough game was way too Early.