Why on earth did pete not call time out?

[mikeak]

I was also thinking and wishing he would call his timeouts with a minute left, however there is no way in hell we were going 60 yards with 30 seconds and NO TIMEOUTS.

There was a MUCH higher chance of us getting called for defensive holding or PI in the endzone, giving them an extra 4 downs to try and score.

In my honest opinion, not calling the timeouts was the right thing to do.

Properly done we have a minute left and one timeout. I went back and checked. You have to remember that we pretty much knew there would be passing plays. Not like they could run the clock down ok purpose and kick for 3

 

[RiverDog]

The only thing I could think of that made sense was our Defense was our best offense last night. If they couldn't get the job done then where was the offense going? They didnt do jack all night! Did you think they were gonna really push the ball forward in 30 seconds? They went backwards all night except for one drive! Maybe Pete just said. F it. Let the D try and pull this out.

I understand that you're being Devil's advocate and just trying to find a reason, but I can't buy that argument.

As a coach, one of your primary jobs is to put your team into the best possible position to win. That's why they make decisions based on the numbers when they decide to go for 2, kick a FG vs. going for it on 4th down, etc. In this situation, the odds clearly dictated that the best decision would have been to call the timeouts and preserve some of the clock in the event that the Rams score.

Why do you think Fischer was running the clock down in the first place? Answer: Because leaving as little on the clock, or forcing us to burn our timeouts, gave his team the best chance to win. Wouldn't the opposite be true for his opponent?

 

[mikeak]

spent the night sleeping on this. In the end only two reasons not to call a Time-out. Either PC used one of these two reasons or he blew it. We probably will never know

1) You thought there was a higher risk that you create a first down by penalties compared to allowing a TD so you don't want to give them a new set of downs with a minute left and three time-outs

2) You were worried that if St Louis failed with a minute left and three time-outs you would get sacked for a safety and give the ball back.....

 

[Lords of Scythia]

Exactly. As soon as it was first and goal, I thought we we should have started using our time outs. Luckily, St. Louis used a couple. But why we didn't call one on 4th down, and stop the clock is beyond me. If they score, I would rather have a shot to run down the field and kick a game winning field goal. But maybe that's just me.... (haha)

Agree. You'd get a run-back and a couple hail maries.

 

[SonicHawk]

You either start calling timeouts at about the 1 min mark or you don't at all. There's not a lot of point of leaving yourself with 15 seconds left and a kickoff when giving them extra time could mean extra plays from PI or PF.

 

[SonicHawk]

Exactly. As soon as it was first and goal, I thought we we should have started using our time outs. Luckily, St. Louis used a couple. But why we didn't call one on 4th down, and stop the clock is beyond me. If they score, I would rather have a shot to run down the field and kick a game winning field goal. But maybe that's just me.... (haha)

Agree. You'd get a run-back and a couple hail maries.

You wouldn't even be near close enough to run a hail mary with the amount of time that would be left.

 

[hawk45]

You either start calling timeouts at about the 1 min mark or you don't at all. There's not a lot of point of leaving yourself with 15 seconds left and a kickoff when giving them extra time could mean extra plays from PI or PF.

That's definitely true.

My preference would have been for Pete to call the timeouts and give his team another chance to win the game if the defense couldn't hold. I am sympathetic to the idea, however, that he thought about what his offense had done all day and said screw it, I'm putting it all on the D, and I'm letting the D know it's all on them. It's a little crazy to me, but our crap OL was crazy too.

 

[Lords of Scythia]

You can run a hail mary from anyplace.

 

[Happy]

Having had a night of sleep and then coming back to this question, my thoughts on it haven't changed.

Although playing the odds is a big part of managing a game, so is psychology. Those are human beings on the field, not robots. If Pete felt his defense was more capable of rising to the occasion than the offense, then throwing down that challenge to them and telling them to go win the game might have provided a crucial psychological edge. If he plays the timeout game and slows everything down, it's a different set of thought processes on the part of both teams really.

I think that's where Pete was coming from.

 

[Scottemojo]

That final series was so reminiscent of Rams/Niners. They went zero blitz twice, we went zero twice. Put it on the defense.

Also, and it's worth being questioned as some of you try to say Pete screwed up, if all our timeouts get used up in just in case they score scenario, and then they come out for a play in a formation that personnel is all wrong for, we are screwed. The way Pete did it, there was no chance of a surprise like that.

I love that he allowed the defense to win the game with no safety net.

 

[Lords of Scythia]

You either start calling timeouts at about the 1 min mark or you don't at all. There's not a lot of point of leaving yourself with 15 seconds left and a kickoff when giving them extra time could mean extra plays from PI or PF.

That's definitely true.

My preference would have been for Pete to call the timeouts and give his team another chance to win the game if the defense couldn't hold. I am sympathetic to the idea, however, that he thought about what his offense had done all day and said screw it, I'm putting it all on the D, and I'm letting the D know it's all on them. It's a little crazy to me, but our crap OL was crazy too.

He'd be throwing away chances to win the game if he did that. It doesn't matter how anyone played--the game could be won on one or two or three plays. PI stopping the clock, maybe. They'd be total longshots of course, but they'd be chances to win.

 

[SonicHawk]

You can run a hail mary from anyplace.

You think running a HM from the 20 is a high percentage play?

 

[chawx]

imagine if he had called a timeout and left 20 seconds or so on the clock and we stopped them like we did on 4th, we would have to run a play from the 2...how that game went, we might have gotten a damn safety on the kneel down.

I agree with Big Balls Pete to not call the timeout (but only because it worked out in our favor) lol

 

[Veilside]

Put me on record as agreeing with putting it on the defense. I was happy to see us run the clock down. I wanted that game to end right then and there, and our strongest unit at the time needed to be the ones to end it. I love Russ and he's clutch as hell...but I had very little faith in our offense to win it even with 1 min left. No more penalties, no more tries at the end zone, just either stop them one more time and win it or don't and lose. Pete made the right choice given the situation IMO.

 

[Hawknballs]

Put me on record as agreeing with putting it on the defense. I was happy to see us run the clock down. I wanted that game to end right then and there, and our strongest unit at the time needed to be the ones to end it. I love Russ and he's clutch as hell...but I had very little faith in our offense to win it even with 1 min left. No more penalties, no more tries at the end zone, just either stop them one more time and win it or don't and lose. Pete made the right choice given the situation IMO.

This.

Also, that clock ticking down affects the offense as well. Even thought they know they have one shot there is something about a running clock that has an effect. the urgency to get to the line and be flawless was pressure on them.

If Pete calls a time out they come out and do whatever personnel/formation/play they want. Why would you want to give them time to strategize?

Conversely, our defense already knew what they were doing. Cover 0. Whatever they came out with, we were still likely doing some variation of it. The only difference would have been a possible adjustment for a back.

 

[hawk45]

Put me on record as agreeing with putting it on the defense. I was happy to see us run the clock down. I wanted that game to end right then and there, and our strongest unit at the time needed to be the ones to end it. I love Russ and he's clutch as hell...but I had very little faith in our offense to win it even with 1 min left. No more penalties, no more tries at the end zone, just either stop them one more time and win it or don't and lose. Pete made the right choice given the situation IMO.

This.

Also, that clock ticking down affects the offense as well. Even thought they know they have one shot there is something about a running clock that has an effect. the urgency to get to the line and be flawless was pressure on them.

If Pete calls a time out they come out and do whatever personnel/formation/play they want. Why would you want to give them time to strategize?

Conversely, our defense already knew what they were doing. Cover 0. Whatever they came out with, we were still likely doing some variation of it. The only difference would have been a possible adjustment for a back.

They had timeouts of their own. Why would the ticking clock cause them angst again? The reason they weren't using their timeouts is because they were driving the ball at will on us and so figured that we were on our heels. Because we were on our heels.

I'll buy that us not using timeouts made a clear statement to our own D about them being the ones to win it, but I don't buy that somehow psyched out the team who drove 97 yards on us.

 

[jlwaters1]

PC said today in his coaches show that he wanted the Rams to feel the pressure. With only 4 seconds He wanted them to feel the pressure to execute and at the same time wanted the game to be won or lost by the defense. I was with many of you, thinking- "why aren't we calling timeouts to conserve times." It wasn't until that final play that I came to the realization that Seattle MIGHT lose the game. Luckily no flag was thrown on Browner (seemed like the refs were very flag happy yesterday).

What a relief that the pass was completely off target.

 

[RiverDog]

Exactly. As soon as it was first and goal, I thought we we should have started using our time outs. Luckily, St. Louis used a couple. But why we didn't call one on 4th down, and stop the clock is beyond me. If they score, I would rather have a shot to run down the field and kick a game winning field goal. But maybe that's just me.... (haha)

Agree. You'd get a run-back and a couple hail maries.

You wouldn't even be near close enough to run a hail mary with the amount of time that would be left.

All we would have needed was a FG, which means getting to the 35 yard line, and there's lots of ways that could happen. A simple pass interference penalty would have done the trick. I've seen it happen multiple times over the past 50 years.

You never want to surrender and close out your options even if it's just one second.

 

[Tokadub]

I was also wondering why no timeout but we won so I guess it was the right call.

Still surprised they didn't run their QB is garbage and they had been pounding run on us all night...

Did we ever even stop them before they gained 1 yard on the run? I can't remember if we did haha.

 

[Barthawk]

How about this for a reason? Fisher let the clock wind down to 4 seconds before calling that time-out. If the Rams committed a procedural penalty, that would mean a 10 second run-off -- and if they don't have another time-out to use to save the run-off, the game ends right there.

OTOH, if we were to have called time-outs earlier in the drive, then we would have done the Rams a huge favor and allowed them to continue their drive.


I don't think that much thought went into it, but I do see that as a legitimate factor in their reasoning.

The 10 second run-off only counts if the clock is moving and the Rams called a TO before the last play.. The 10 second run-off doesn't apply there..

I liked the fact that he didn't call TOs.. There were over 20 penalties called in that game and I was totally expecting to a see flag and some point when the Rams were inside the 10.