The flags started flying early and often during an ugly Thursday night game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns. With only seconds remaining in a blowout win for the Browns, defensive end Myles Garrett took down quarterback Mason Rudolph after he’d released the ball. Not to rehash a scene that has seen plenty of rehashing, back and forth between the two eventually led to Garrett swinging Rudolph’s own helmet down on his unprotected noggin.
A melee with other teammates ensued, and ultimately ejections, fines and suspensions followed. Lots of finger pointing and the airwaves have been full of opinions. A helmet as a weapon is bad for everyone – and frankly amazing that Rudolph came away with no serious damage. Especially mere weeks after he was knocked out cold with a concussion in a game. Garrett is suspended indefinitely, with appeals to come. So the drama will continue to unfold, and he will always be negatively attached to this moment. Meanwhile, the two teams face each other again two weeks post-incident, which should provide an interesting rematch.
The second flag is thrown on clock management by teams at the end of games or halves. It’s remarkable how many teams look like they’re ill-prepared, or try to be too clever for their own good.
The Chicago Bears are a total mess right now, and they certainly aren’t aided by blown opportunities such as the one before the end of the first half, while down 10-0 to the Los Angeles Rams. With plenty of time and the ball near midfield, they looked perfectly content to run the clock down and not make a serious effort to put points on the board. A bad football game was made even worse.
The Denver Broncos, struggling all year to perform consistently in all phases of the game (and losing many close games because of it), put together a near perfect first half against a strong Minnesota Vikings team. But a 20-0 lead wasn’t enough to hold off a Vikings comeback (it was the first time in five years that a halftime lead that large was squandered) and a 27-23 loss as the outcome.
But the Broncos had a chance to bail themselves out with good field position on a final drive. Behind surprisingly solid backup quarterback Brandon Allen, they drove to the 4-yard line. With only 10 seconds left, they had three unsuccessful shots at the end-zone before time ran out. Along the way, they dealt with numerous pass interference calls that were not missed/not made by officials, a pass interference challenge that burned a timeout (more about that later), and some gutsy converted fourth down plays.
I don’t have as much issue as some about the choice to challenge the pass interference call – it looked pretty obvious real time and in slow motion – and at the time they still were in good shape time-wise. My complaint is that they let plenty of time slip by over the course of the drive, which one can only assume was either poor pre-game prep, or more likely to use up all of the remaining clock.
It’s a league-wide problem: coaches worrying too much about how much time is left for the other team that they don’t take care of the most important task: putting points on the board. Unless the game is tied, or a team is winning, scoring any way possible has to be the absolute focus. It is so hard to score in the NFL, that you can’t afford to get “too cute” (as my Dad used to say); just take care of business. When you don’t handicap yourself with an additional focus of running the clock down, it can mean you have one more precious play to possibly win a game.
The final flag is thrown on the league with their new rule that allows coaches to challenge pass interference calls. Meant to address the injustice done to the New Orleans Saints in last year’s playoff game versus the Rams, it has been an utter failure. Since Week 4, only 5% of these challenges have gone the way of the coaches. An overwhelming number of these challenges have seemed to be justified by TV viewers and announcers, but the league seems to be watching a different game…or covering their own butts and the mistakes of the officials.
Every week is a long list of examples of the failure of this program. This past weekend, the most glaring was the mugging of Houston Texans All-Pro wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins in a game against the Baltimore Ravens.
Pundits are now recommending that coaches don’t even burn a timeout on the effort – the league seems to be making a point that they will never employ this process as it was intended, or unless, as Vic Fangio said, it was “a five-car pileup.” But can you blame a coach for watching a player make a full-on tackle of another player before the ball arrives (like in the Arizona Cardinals – San Francisco 49ers game) right in front of his bench, and not feel you have to use a tool that was created for that very purpose? Pretty certain that after many, many more of these embarrassing moments for the league, this rule (and the NYC telephone) will be a distant memory next season.
