you haven't been here long enough to know whether he sucks are not....you may think his OPINION sucks, but you can not be sure about him......
Mike Tomlin is an Excellent Game Manager
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you haven't been here long enough to know whether he sucks are not....you may think his OPINION sucks, but you can not be sure about him......
Hi, I'm new here. I'm from up in Canada. I grew up in a steel town and became a Steelers fan when they went to the January 1979 game against the Cowboys.
I like this team's refusal to lose. They find a way to win. In the past they would have lost some of these these past few games.
I find it odd that there has been little mentioned about the last 4 Steelers plays last night. They had first down at Baltimore 30 1:02 left. They ran and Balt took their second timeout :56 seconds left. At this point all they have to do is run on second down and burn 5 seconds but more importantly burn Balt's last last last timeout. Run again on third down and run the clock down to 12 seconds or so and kick the field goal. Instead they gave Balt the ball back with :42 seconds and a timeout. Great win poor clock management imo. Go Steelers.
I like this team's refusal to lose. They find a way to win. In the past they would have lost some of these these past few games.
I find it odd that there has been little mentioned about the last 4 Steelers plays last night. They had first down at Baltimore 30 1:02 left. They ran and Balt took their second timeout :56 seconds left. At this point all they have to do is run on second down and burn 5 seconds but more importantly burn Balt's last last last timeout. Run again on third down and run the clock down to 12 seconds or so and kick the field goal. Instead they gave Balt the ball back with :42 seconds and a timeout. Great win poor clock management imo. Go Steelers.
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Yep...that is what I thought they would do.
Yeah i almost had a nervous breakdown. Smh. Would love to hear the reasoning behind the throws.
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Probably didn't translate to Canuckistani
Maybe he's improving. I'll give you that.
You are right. That was the first instance where the clock would have worked in our favor by running, and it wasn't utilized. It nearly cost them the game. Fortunately Coach Harbaugh is worse, and doesn't understand the rules for fumbling out of bounds under 2 minutes.
The positives, were the team still scored at the end of each half. The negative was they chose to pass on 2nd down, then had to pass on 3rd to chase the clock advantage. In the playoffs, this mistake can not be made again.
The positives, were the team still scored at the end of each half. The negative was they chose to pass on 2nd down, then had to pass on 3rd to chase the clock advantage. In the playoffs, this mistake can not be made again.
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Ha! Small comfort.
I was screaming at them to just run the damn ball 2 times and make the kick at the end. They were passing!!! WHY!!! Make the Ravens use their timeouts at the very least, run the clock down to nothing...........AND we almost lost with that Ben lob into traffic for no reason at all!!!
Tomlin will be outcoached again by Belichick - guaranteed
If you wanted to take a shot down the field, it should have been on first down. Run on second, run on third. Hell, if you weren't concerned about giving them the ball back with a minute left on the clock, why not kick it on 3rd down in case there was a bad snap?
Indeed, there's a shitload of information in that black and yellow op-ed piece, much of which has a great deal to do with the successes of the players in the last two minutes of halves and games, and much less to do with actual clock management, but the author loses his credibility completely with the statement: "The first half of the season saw no errors in clock management." Is that so? That sounded a bit far-fetched to me, so I decided to do some research of my own.
With minimal effort, simply looking at the KC game, and the KC game only:
The Steelers did not score in the last two minutes of the first half; they got the ball with nearly nine minutes on the clock on their own one, drove 93 yards, and settled for a Boswell field goal at the 2:08 mark. Nothing at all to do with any clock management mastery here.
After a touchback, the Chiefs proceed to get one first down, then there's a six-yard sack. Then a false start. Then offsetting penalties. Then another sack for 9 yards. So it's 3rd-and-30 for KC on their own 17, with over 20 seconds left in the half, and Tomlin decides to keep his three timeouts in his pocket and allow the opposition to take it into halftime.
Why not at the very least force a punt from deep in their territory? Was he living in his fear of a 30-yard third down conversion? No, it was a clock management error in a tight road game.
And toward the end of the very same game, when Pittsburgh threw the ball on 3rd-and-8, it wasn't some brilliant aggressive strategy from Tomlin, it was a gift from Andy Reid, who foolishly called time out with 2:05 on the clock, essentially allowing the Steelers to pass (because in this case, the clock stops at the 2-minute warning whether they run the ball or not, so it is now a no-brainer to throw it), and taking away a tough decision from Tomlin.
Game-managing excellence? Hardly.
With minimal effort, simply looking at the KC game, and the KC game only:
The Steelers did not score in the last two minutes of the first half; they got the ball with nearly nine minutes on the clock on their own one, drove 93 yards, and settled for a Boswell field goal at the 2:08 mark. Nothing at all to do with any clock management mastery here.
After a touchback, the Chiefs proceed to get one first down, then there's a six-yard sack. Then a false start. Then offsetting penalties. Then another sack for 9 yards. So it's 3rd-and-30 for KC on their own 17, with over 20 seconds left in the half, and Tomlin decides to keep his three timeouts in his pocket and allow the opposition to take it into halftime.
Why not at the very least force a punt from deep in their territory? Was he living in his fear of a 30-yard third down conversion? No, it was a clock management error in a tight road game.
And toward the end of the very same game, when Pittsburgh threw the ball on 3rd-and-8, it wasn't some brilliant aggressive strategy from Tomlin, it was a gift from Andy Reid, who foolishly called time out with 2:05 on the clock, essentially allowing the Steelers to pass (because in this case, the clock stops at the 2-minute warning whether they run the ball or not, so it is now a no-brainer to throw it), and taking away a tough decision from Tomlin.
Game-managing excellence? Hardly.
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I wasn't opposed to them passing at that point, but they needed to have two of their most assured passing plays called. That way, when there's an enormous breakdown, as it played out on those two plays, you have something quick, and easy to make sure that the damn clock continues to run. Throwing for the end zone to Xavier Grimble does not fall in line with that. Stupid play call, and not the greatest throw, nor decision, by Ben in an otherwise fanfuckingtastic game.
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They actually did on the 3rd down play. Eli was wide open across the middle for a first down but Hubbard got beat immediately and forced Ben to pull the ball down and throw it off balanced as he was getting hit, otherwise it would've been an easy completion. The 2nd down play was idiotic but it was on Hubbard why they didn't complete the 3rd down pass.
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Didn't he leave the Ravens with 40 seconds on the clock and one time out?
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True, and the play was definitely there, but even then I would've liked to see Bell be there for the easy dump-off, or James there with one of those shovel pass plays we love to run.
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Its all Ben and his 4th quarter comebacks. When you win things like clock management are quickly forgotten.
I felt Mikey left the Ravens a few seconds too much.
Interesting ... See, I saw Haley calling the plays and Ben spiking the ball. While I realize that the HC is ultimately responsible for things of this nature, one simply can not ignore the effect that decisions made by the QB and OC have on these situations. At least not and be a realist, In any event, "MIKEY" (an attempt to deny Tomlin's status as a grown man?) coached a team that won a football game. Harbs, who many of you say is a better coach, frittered away the final seconds of the game.
Cause he didnt know a rule that the clock would keep running and his team needed to be ready to go immediately after the refs spotted the ball.. mikey would be ridiculed to no end
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KC End of Half 2:08 KC 25 Runs 7 plays and ends w/ sack End of Half
2min of game 2:17 PIT 24 3 and out 1:59 left KC uses 2 TOs Pass attempted on 3rd and 8
2min of game 1:42 KC 44 4th and 18 failed 0:58 left
End of Reg 0:52 KC 48 2 Kneel Downs No time on clock Defensive stand wins the game
Pretty easy to do the research, because a spreadsheet has already been made for it.
A TO could have been used at the end of the half. I think there was 23 sec left after the sack. A TO would have brought 3rd down and long, time for another play being about 4sec, using the final TO, so now the ball would be punted on 4th down around 19sec. Still a good strategy to try and force a mistake or possibly get a nice return. Also a good strategy to try and get one last score in since KC started with the ball in Q3. Still the O could have had the ball with about 14sec to see what they could do on a long field.
Conversely, KC could run another play and have it succeed. It's 3rd down and not 4th down, so if a success happened, the TO would have gone in their favor. I'm not saying that would have happened (them picking up 30 yards would have been more yards than they generated all game up to that point, but it is a possible outcome.
For end of game, the strategy is sound. It's not a no brainer to throw on 3rd and long at 2 minutes. If you look around the league, coaches are ultra conservative and rarely put the ball in the air to attempt to close out a game on offense. It was Tomlin's strategy to aggressively go for the first down, and the team didn't convert. It is the strategy that is important, and that aggressive passing on 3rd and long to win games on offense DID work and got us wins vs CLE and DET.
Tomlin could have held the clock and forced the ravens to use all of their TOs at the end of the game against the Ravens, and kick the ball with very little time on the clock, but did not. That is an error in clock management, not blaming the result of a failed execution on the field.
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And the failure of throwing on 2nd down, meant they had to try for the first down on 3rd down, just to control the clock again. I was really upset that it left BAL with 40+ seconds, a TO and Justin Tucker's super leg for a potential loss.
Pretty easy just go to the ESPN box score play-by-play, which isn't biased, and doesn't omit pertinent information.
No, a timeout SHOULD have been strategically used, thus it was not good clock management. The probability of KC converting a 3rd-and-30 in that situation had a "possible outcome" percentage of next to zero.
What you don't seem to understand is the point that Andy Reid opened the door for Tomlin to throw the ball in that instance, because an incomplete pass would've resulted in the two-minute warning just the same as a run up the middle would have. If Reid doesn't call time out before the two-minute warning, then Tomlin has to decide if he wants to be aggressive and pass to try and win the game, or if he wants to run and force KC to use another timeout before punting it away.
Conversely, against the Ravens, I really don't mind the strategy of throwing on 2nd and 3rd down. Pressure-laden 46-yard field goals at Heinz Field (or anywhere, really) are not gimmes, in my opinion.
And that's the thing with coaching, sometimes there are 2 different ways to take the situations and understand the strategy.
In the first half, it was a tight game, and we weren't really moving the ball well, as we started to after the bye. Perhaps Tomlin was living in his fears, perhaps the risk to call a TO wasn't worth having to attack that D under 20sec to try and get a FG.
In the second half of KC a first down throwing would have continued the drive. Worst case, they use their last TO and get the ball back with 30sec and no time outs. Best case, another first down ices the clock and they never get another possession. The 2min warning is only a factor stopping the clock before the first down play, and the TO would have come after the first down play. 2 plays after second and third downs each eat 45sec.
You do raise a good point about long FGs in Heinz, and I can see that reasoning of getting closer to win the game on a walk off FG closer to the EZ. That could have been the thinking on the sideline that let them to call a pass in the first place. I work more with the timing that they had, and situationally being able to close out the game there without giving the ball back to one of the best kickers in the NFL. That choice and inability to execute the pass gave the Ravens the Ball back with a TO and ample time to move 40 yards. In clock control, that is a loss, but I can't refute the strategy of going for a shorter FG.