The Pittsburgh Steelers have 15 coaches on their staff including an Offensive Coordinator, an Offensive Assistant, and five separate offensive position coaches. They also employ 14 more scouts and coordinators in their Football Operations department. In spite of all these professionals it appears that no one on the Steelers is aware what the optimal game clock strategy is for end of the game situations. I say this because of the massive blunder the Steelers coaches made in the end-game Sunday Night against the Ravens.
The mistake? A seemingly routine play and routine decision that the Steelers totally botched and lead to the worst possible outcome for their team. With just over two minutes left in the 4th quarter the Ravens had a 13-10 lead on the Steelers who had one time-out remaining. Baltimore had the ball on 2nd down with the clock running and just over two minutes left. Their 2nd down play was a run for no gain setting up 3rd and 7 with 2:04 left on the game clock and leaving the Steelers with a decision; use the final timeout now or let the clock run to the 2-minute warning. The difference may seem trivial, but there are several reasons to wait on using the timeout.
If the Steelers chose to use the timeout immediately they would have stopped the clock with exactly 2:04 left, but they also let the Ravens know that the clock will stop on the next play regardless of it is a run or pass because of the two minute warning. If the Steelers chose to let the clock run to the two minute warning, the Ravens would be tempted to run on 3rd down to force the Steelers to use their final timeout. Using the timeout makes defending the 3rd down play much tougher on the Ravens defense because of the likely hood they would face a pass.
The second reason to wait on spending the timeout is the exact situation that unfolded in the game. The Ravens ran a (pass) play but the Steelers took a penalty on the play. During the play the clock hit the two minute warning. This meant that when the Ravens accepted the penalty the game clock was at 2:00 and they were free to run another play. The Ravens used this play to run another 40 seconds off the clock before giving the ball back to the Steelers, which they wouldn’t have been able to do had the Steelers kept their timeout.
The result is a simple error that cost the Steelers a crucial 40+ seconds of game clock in the dying moments of the game. The decision alone decreased the Steelers win probability from 14% down to 9% according to the excellent Win Probability Calculator at advancednflstats.com. What is so infuriating about this decision is that it is not one that needs to be made in the spur of the moment. The planning for this situation should occur prior to the game, or prior to the season even. Every team should have a set of rules they stick to for the time clock based on the game situation. All time clock situations can be planned out ahead of time, yet the Steelers employ close to 30 football professionals and none of them have thought to have the team employ simple calculations that anyone kid playing Madden is aware of.
If this lack of strategy wasn’t enough the Steelers also made several other blunders throughout the game related to the game management. During the 3rd quarter the Steelers wasted timeouts on back-to-back plays at the goaline in order to save themselves from delay of game penalties. Later, on the Steelers final drive of the game Pittsburgh RB Rashard Mendenhall caught a short dump-off pass in the right flat and instead of running out of bounds he choose to charge upfield. He gained an extra 2 yards and cost the Steelers 20 seconds of game clock, decreasing their win probability by 2% in the process.
These mental blunders all show a lack of planning on the Steelers coaches’ part, which is a real shame on a night then the players battled hard to stay in a game with a division rival with the back-up QB taking all the snaps.
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