Why was Spags saving his timeouts?

[rayzorram]

I don't understand what Spags was thinking during that last drive? The way Spags or Shurmur was calling the game you would of thought they thought we were down by 3 pts. not 4. When you're on the road I can see saving your timeouts to not let the crowd noise affect the offense from hearing the snap count but you're at home and Bradford could've had an extra 12 to 15 seconds to work with. What do you guys think? I swear I hit the television screen when they showed a close up of Spags yelling to him to call a timeout!!

[Ironmaidenram]

I questioned the "time" management also, could they have one?? Maybe, but it should have never come down to that, should Clif score on that fumble.

[rayzorram]

Hey Ironmaidenram I was doing some research on this topic and found words from Spag during the post game interview!

Spagnuolo defends clock management
By RON CLEMENTS
2010-09-13 23:14:57

ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo was grilled Monday afternoon about his clock management late in Sunday’s 17-13 home loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

But the second-year head coach defended his decision not to use a timeout following a completion to tight end Daniel Fells with 38 seconds remaining. Nearly 20 seconds ticked off the clock as rookie quarterback Sam Bradford tried to hustle the team to line and call the next play.

“Should we have taken a timeout there? Possibly,” Spagnuolo said at his weekly Monday press conference. “It all depends on how it all pans out. We possibly would have gotten one more play. What you’ve got to remember is we then would not have had any timeouts for the fourth-and-1 so you can’t run the ball. You’re not running it there. Now we run it to get the first down because you want to have another down. So you could make the argument to take the timeout, but those plays then, after you take the last one, all those plays have to go to the sideline. When you have a timeout in your back pocket, you use the whole field until you’re out of timeouts.”

Spagnuolo said clock management in the two-minute drill is solely his responsibility and the decision to wait on using the final timeout was an attempt to catch the Arizona defense out of position.

“It is much tougher to call a two-minute defense when you’re not huddling,” Spagnuolo said. “But when you huddle and you give them time, that’s when people bring pressure. So we were in attack mode, and you could make the argument, ‘Take the timeout.’ They line up, they can conjure up a defense or a pressure… You want to stay in attack mode.”

This is why I'm not a NFL football coach!

[NJ Ramsfan1]

I understand what Spags is saying, which is essentially that calling timeouts when you absolutely don't need them allows the opposition to set up a defense, substitute personnel and rest. You also eliminate the possibility of running the football if you don't have one left in your pocket. At the same time, I believe he had ALL THREE time outs when they began their last possession. And to allow a 20 second run off after a play inside of a minute left can't happen. They could have run another play or two in that time.

Easy to second guess and very hard to execute- but that's what he gets paid to do.

[PeoriaRam]

What you’ve got to remember is we then would not have had any timeouts for the fourth-and-1 so you can’t run the ball.

You could also runs plays that go past the first down marker and therefore avoid this problem.

[shower beers]

Spagnuolo said clock management in the two-minute drill is solely his responsibility and the decision to wait on using the final timeout was an attempt to catch the Arizona defense out of position.

“It is much tougher to call a two-minute defense when you’re not huddling,” Spagnuolo said. “But when you huddle and you give them time, that’s when people bring pressure. So we were in attack mode, and you could make the argument, ‘Take the timeout.’ They line up, they can conjure up a defense or a pressure… You want to stay in attack mode.”

This is why I'm not a NFL football coach!

I was curious at first too. I respect that mindset and agree with it. Trying to keep Arizona in vanilla schemes was the right call in my opinion. On the flip side though, a timeout to set up a final play may have not resulted in an essential "hail mary" play. Glad I don't have to make that call!

[sonnyjames]

I understand what Spags is saying, which is essentially that calling timeouts when you absolutely don't need them allows the opposition to set up a defense, substitute personnel and rest. You also eliminate the possibility of running the football if you don't have one left in your pocket. At the same time, I believe he had ALL THREE time outs when they began their last possession. And to allow a 20 second run off after a play inside of a minute left can't happen. They could have run another play or two in that time.

Easy to second guess and very hard to execute- but that's what he gets paid to do.

Pretty sure we had two time outs. Given that we're not set up to throw long anyway, that's always going to make a two minute drill a toughie...not least when you don't even have two minutes to play with - think we had something like 1m38s on the clock didn't we?

I see and agree with the principle of what he's saying, but when you do make a long play which means the team has to then get up the field and reset into positions, that really is the time to use a time out, especially when you've got less than 40 seconds on the clock. So I agree with the theory, but given the time that was left I don't agree with the way it played out in practice and I think he needed to adapt accordingly.

I'd like to think we'll get better at that with practice tho - and the fact that we're now at least still in the game going into the last minutes is something to be positive about anyway.

[macrammer]

I think this was simply bad time managment on Spags and I would much rather have him admit then just spew rhetoric. You had two timeouts and a rookie QB with a decent chance or at least a chance to win the game. There is room for everyone to grow here including the coaching staff.

[KoaKoi]

tbh, i didn't have a problem with it when i watched the game. i'll take a closer look at it when i go thru it again tho.

[LA Rammer]

You could also runs plays that go past the first down marker and therefore avoid this problem.

yeah and you don't take quick short shots down the middle. play call was also horrible. I would only say "unless" you don't have receivers to get the ball to.

all that not getting a serious upgrade at WR is really showing now.

[mh-i]

If you're not going to throw the ball down the field then you have to use your timeouts. Every pass was underneath on the last two drives.

[RamFan_Til_I_Die]

Why was Spags saving his timeouts?

He thought he could turn them in for a free blizzard at Dairy Queen?