The Pittsburgh Steelers dropped their second straight game against a 2-10 team on Thursday Night Football against the New England Patriots. The Steelers had every chance to come back in the fourth quarter, as the final score ended up being 21-18. A field goal would have tied the game up and sent it to overtime.
On their second to last offensive drive, the Steelers turned the ball over on downs on a questionable 4th and 2 play call that saw QB Mitch Trubisky throw it deep on a low percentage play to Diontae Johnson rather than a safer play to get a fresh set of downs. It wasn’t over from there, as the Patriots went three-and-out, and the Steelers got the ball back with 15 seconds left in the game.
They could have had significantly more time left on the clock if they didn’t have just one timeout remaining at the end of the second half. They used that timeout on the Patriots three-and-out, but they were able to bleed the clock down to 00:15. The Steelers have been burning their timeouts at odd times to avoid penalties like too many men on the field or delay of game, but former QB Ben Roethlisberger doesn’t necessarily agree with that approach. He discussed this topic on his Monday evening episode of Footbahlin’ posted on YouTube.
“First half, say the play clock is running down, you got three timeouts,” Roethlisberger said on the conversations he used to have around timeout and clock management. “Coach, would you rather me use the timeout, or do you want to just take the five-yard penalty and keep the timeout? First half, you know what, take the timeout, but in the second half? Having timeouts is huge. Sometimes, I know it sounds crazy, sometimes it’s better to take the five-yard delay of game than it is to waste a timeout.”
The Steelers used their first timeout of the second half to avoid a delay of game on 1st and goal from the eight-yard line. Trubisky called for it himself. To me, that is a more understandable use of a timeout, as the Steelers have had trouble converting red zone attempts to touchdowns. Three plays later, they would score.
The second burned timeout was the following drive on 4th and inches. Tomlin initially sent the punt unit out but changed his mind. They wouldn’t have had time to get the offense back out on the field, so another timeout was called. That has to be something that you think of beforehand, and if that situation arises, just punt the ball. There were over seven minutes left in the game, and it was 21-18, so there would be plenty of time to get the ball back, and all they needed was a field goal to tie the game up. They did convert on that 4th and 1 but punted on 4th and 3 a few plays later.
“Because at the end of that game,” Roethlisberger continued. “If we had one more timeout, we have another chance. And so when you lose timeouts because of silly penalties…to me, that’s bad. It’s bad coaching.”
The Steelers were able to gain 45 yards on two plays before the clock expired on that final drive. They only needed about five or ten more yards to get into Chris Boswell’s field goal range to send the game to overtime. The poor timeout management ensured they had no chance.
