It ain't over till it's over
Posted: Friday November 20, 1998 09:58 AM
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NFL teams hire accountant types and call them capologists -- experts in the
salary cap, contract jugglers. Makes sense, I guess, but if I were running
a franchise I'd hire another kind of specialist as well, a clockologist, a
tick-tock expert to keep the team from butchering the clock.
How often do I see this? Oh, just about every week. Coaches who are
skilled in every aspect of football seem to go blank under clock pressure
at the end of a game, more often at the end of a half. Now I know that
it's not easy down there on the sidelines, with bodies flying around and
officials dropping flags for mysterious reasons and headsets crackling with
all sorts of up-to-date news reports. That's why I'd have a calm, strategic
type of person ready to move in at the coach's side, and coldly and
dispassionately assist in managing the last two minutes or so.
I have a whole notebook full of clock butcheries, or at least dubious
decisions where time is concerned. Saving them been a kind of thing with
me through the years. Let's just look at last Monday night -- and this
concerns the darling of the NFL, the Denver Broncos, and the
hottest coach in the league, Mike Shanahan .
Late in the first half, Broncos up, 17-7, still anybody's game. The Chiefs
have just been stopped at their own 18, and they're lining up to punt.
The clock shows 1:51 and it's running, running, running. "Call time
out," I mutter to my TV set, which offers no reply whatsoever.
"Why don't you call time out?" Why, indeed?
Here's where my clockologist, with his analytical brain, would move in,
processing information like a human Univac. The Broncos have all three
timeouts left and could certainly spend one in a good cause; K.C. is
punting against the wind, and Louie Aguiar's last two
have gone for 33 and 35 yards; the man receiving the punt, Darrien Gordon, has the
highest average per return in history; and even with a minimal return you
figure to get the ball around midfield. Uh, coach, I strongly recommend a
time out at this point.
Tick-tick, the clock keeps running, and when the Broncos take over on their
own 32, thanks to a penalty, it shows 1:05. I ran the tape back at
halftime, and if they'd have called timeout reasonably quickly they could
have saved 36 seconds. Thirty-six seconds, a lifetime in hurry-up football
when you've got timeouts to burn -- especially when you've got a veteran
QB, Bubby Brister,
running things.
So they go into a speed-up mode and use all their timeouts and wind up
kicking a field goal anyway, with 14 seconds left. My way, they could have
had a TD. Makes no sense.
I'll give you one more, and this time the coach let us know what was on his
mind. Carolina vs. San Francisco, a heart-breaking two-point Panthers
loss, when John Kasay
wound up shorting a 57-yard field goal at the end.
One minute and four seconds left and the 49ers are lining up to kick the
46-yard field goal that won the game for them. Clock is running. Panthers
must stop it to give their offense a chance, assuming that the kick is
good. Or at least that's what my clockologist would tell Dom Capers
. Uh-uh, he lets 27 seconds run off, and then, with 0:37 showing, a
timeout is finally called, by the Niners no less. And when Carolina gets
the ball, after the kickoff has consumed four seconds, they've got 33
seconds and two timeouts to work with and they wind up with a hopeless
57-yard field goal try. They could have had a full minute and one timeout.
Capers's explanation: He wanted to save his timeouts, so he could throw at
least one pass in the middle of the field, and then use the other one to
line up his field goal. Wrong thinking on two counts. One, trading 27
seconds for a timeout is a bad deal. Two, you can still throw inbounds and
then spike the ball quickly to kill the clock, all within 15 seconds.
And with a minute left, you could do that a few times, win the game, and
buy your clockologist a good, hot meal.
I once had a very interesting conversation with Raiders boss Al Davis
on clock management. He had a chart worked out -- how long each kind
of pass, including incompletes, actually takes. He said that you can
complete a sideline pass in six to eight seconds. An incompletion takes
four. A mid-range pass inside, followed by a spike, can eat up 12 to 15,
less if your players are really focused and the officials get the teams
lined up quickly. I remember his comment that few coaches realize how many
plays they can actually run off in a short amount of time.
Ask anyone who's ever bet against the Dolphins and then, in agony, watched
Dan Marino bring his team
down the field with a lot of plays in very little time. You can only groan,
"My God, why doesn't the clock move?"
Jake Plummer, only a second-year QB, had 35 seconds and two timeouts left
when he brought his team 50 yards, from his own 20 to the Redskins' 30, to
set up the 47-yard field that beat Washington two weeks ago. He threw five
passes, completing four. Here's the breakdown:
Fifteen yards to Larry
Centers, seven seconds.
Eleven yards to Eric
Metcalf, six seconds, timeout.
Eighteen yards to Frank
Sanders, six seconds.
Incomplete, three seconds.
Six yards to Metcalf, five seconds, timeout to set up the field goal.
Eight seconds left. That's five plays in 27 seconds, average 5.4 seconds
per play, four of which were pass completions. You don't get better clock
management than that. When the field goal was kicked, two seconds
remained.
Here's one more, and that'll be it. Bear with me, OK? This is my thing.
Peyton Manning took the Colts 80 yards in 15 plays for the TD that beat the
Jets last week. He got the ball with 3:04 left, and the winning pass was
completed with 0:24 showing. Three penalties were called -- one of them
included in a play, so we won't count it. One was for delay, so we won't
count that one as a snap, either. So it comes out to 16 snaps in 2:40, an
average of 10 seconds per play, eight of which were completed passes, with
five incompletes, one of which was a spike, one penalty, and, get this, two
running plays, both short-yardage quarterback sneaks. One sneak was
followed by a spike (10 seconds used for both plays) and one was followed
by a time out, the only one used on the drive.
Now we're not talking about a crafty veteran who used the clock so
beautifully. Peyton's only a baby, and he wasn't running a well-oiled
machine. These were the 2-8 Colts.
You can do a lot with very little time, but so many people don't understand
this. Most TV announcers are in the dark. I can't tell you how many
times I've heard big-name analysts commend a ball-carrier for running out
of bounds to stop the clock -- with four or five minutes left in the first
half or six minutes left in the second. Unfortunately, they don't know
that the rules were changed a few years ago to speed up the game, and
except for the last two minutes of the first half and the last five minutes
of the second half the clock keeps running, even when a guy goes out of
bounds.
Clock butchery is even more prevalent in college ball. At times it's
laughable. Once I asked Bill Walsh why college coaches are so
foggy on clock management, and he said the following:
"All you have to do is go to a college coaching clinic and see what
goes on there. Most of the time is spent talking about how to set up
recruiting networks or how to get the alumni involved in the program.
Almost no time is spent on how to win a game."
Or on why you should hire a clockologist.
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