The momentum-killing second timeout

[I-5]

We were moving the ball in the 4th quarter...finally. Wilson had checked to a run play that gained 4 yards and another first down. Then, with 9 seconds left on the play clock, the Hawks called timeout. As soon as it happened, my buddy Dennis commented, 'what did they do that for? They just killed all the momentum we had'. Sure enough, 2 plays later, Wilson throws a slant to the sideline, pick six, game over. So who called timeout? Wilson? Schott? No, it was Carroll, who said the offence was misaligned. Obviously, they didn't think Russell would be able to correct it within the 9 seconds, or maybe not even notice it. Not exactly a vote of confidence from the coach, and it wasted a valuable timeout.

"Can I answer you another one too? Because I heard that there was a question about when we called timeout. We were misaligned on that and the clock was running down and so we called timeout for that reason and that was it," he reiterated. "I know you guys have all kinds of theories. There’s all kinds of theories out there and everything’s fine. We were competing for the moment. Russ didn’t know why we called the time out at the time, immediately. He wasn’t sure what it was and that was all that we were dealing with. And we were trying to win.” - Pete

https://247sports.com/nfl/seattle-seaha ... 122245047/

[NorthHawk]

I think we began discussing Pete and time management/timeouts in his first year.
Some things don't change, I guess.

[mykc14]

Yeah, I posted on that in another thread and I'm not going to re-type everything here, but that was one of the most head-scratching timeouts I have ever witnessed. I know I don't know all of the details and maybe they were so mis-aligned that they would have had a disaster of a play, but I still can't believe they would take the ball out of Wilson's hands in that situation. He clearly had a play that he was excited about running and knew it was a huge waste of a timeout!!

[Anthony]

Way more to it. Wilson had audibled again and shotty and PC were pissed. So they called thr timeout

[HumanCockroach]

You reaching deeeeppp into your bag of excuses for this one....

[Anthony]

You reaching deeeeppp into your bag of excuses for this one....

Not at all, like i keep telling try watching the game sometime you would learn something.

[HumanCockroach]

Sorry, you still on ignore, I'm still not big on excuses, and "ruining Wilson's momentum" about as anemic as it gets. What's next? He didn't like the team dinner, and Carroll knew it? Perhaps, his cleats weren't polished enough... ?

[Anthony]

Sorry, you still on ignore, I'm still not big on excuses, and "ruining Wilson's momentum" about as anemic as it gets. What's next? He didn't like the team dinner, and Carroll knew it? Perhaps, his cleats weren't polished enough... ?

Your not bug on excuses. Lol your funny pathetic but funny. Time for you to go were all duncels go. The foe zone

[RiverDog]

Calling a timeout because the clock was "running down" when there is still 9 seconds left in the second half of a close game in which you are trailing is beyond insanity and Pete's explanation is completely inadequate. However, I'm not joining Anthony's goofy grassy knoll conspiracy crowd by speculating that Pete and Schott were mad at Russell audibling out of a play they had called.

This is just one of the strange things that Pete has said as an explanation for bona fide questions about his game decisions. Another one is the way they've been using Carson and Penny at running back. When asked why Carson didn't get more playing time in the 2nd half Carroll says it was because he was "gassed" on special teams? Those are head scratching remarks at the very least.

Pete has never been the kind to make up stuff to throw the press off and I've always gotten the impression that he's basically straight in his answers even though he'll often time lay on the bullchit with his use of superlatives. But here lately, he's giving answers to questions that make no sense whatsoever. Is there something going on with Pete? This isn't like him.

[NorthHawk]

It's all part of the time management problem with Pete whether it's challenges on meaningless plays or odd timeouts called.
This has been something that's been going on since he got here.

[RiverDog]

It's all part of the time management problem with Pete whether it's challenges on meaningless plays or odd timeouts called.
This has been something that's been going on since he got here.

I agree that there's been occasions in the past when Pete makes a questionable decision related to game management. I saw him do it when he was at USC. And he's not the only one. Mike Holmgren quite frequently lost track of the game situation and mismanaged the game clock. Head coaches are no different than the rest of the human population. Sometimes they make decisions that are very difficult to explain.

But this is different. I'm talking about Pete's post game explanations when he's had a chance to reflect on what happened and how he's handled questions in the past. In response to the Carson question, he would always be able to deflect criticism by saying something like that they wanted to get Penny some touches. He didn't go and make up some goofy answer like he was gassed from special teams. He's acting like Bobby Knight did towards the end of his coaching career.

There's not many ways to explain this behavior. One is Anthony's conspiracy theory, another is my "professor with tenure" theory, and a third is that there is something cognitive going on with Pete. If you or anyone else has an explanation to these irrational remarks, I'm all ears.

[NorthHawk]

I agree that there's been occasions in the past when Pete makes a questionable decision related to game management. I saw him do it when he was at USC. And he's not the only one. Mike Holmgren quite frequently lost track of the game situation and mismanaged the game clock. Head coaches are no different than the rest of the human population. Sometimes they make decisions that are very difficult to explain.

But this is different. I'm talking about Pete's post game explanations when he's had a chance to reflect on what happened and how he's handled questions in the past. In response to the Carson question, he would always be able to deflect criticism by saying something like that they wanted to get Penny some touches. He didn't go and make up some goofy answer like he was gassed from special teams. He's acting like Bobby Knight did towards the end of his coaching career.

There's not many ways to explain this behavior. One is Anthony's conspiracy theory, another is my "professor with tenure" theory, and a third is that there is something cognitive going on with Pete. If you or anyone else has an explanation to these irrational remarks, I'm all ears

I think he got himself into a bind by suggesting Carson was gassed when he in fact wanted to see Penney play. He did say he wanted to get him some playing time in a later interview.
I think it was an ill advised comment about Carson just to get past the issue that blew up more than he expected.

[HumanCockroach]

My point wasn't the oddity of the call, my point really was simply, that regardless of the call, the players have a job to do, and that includes Wilson.... ultimately, the foolishness of a timeout there isn't really debatable, the performance of the players is.

[Anthony]

It's all part of the time management problem with Pete whether it's challenges on meaningless plays or odd timeouts called.
This has been something that's been going on since he got here.

I agree...however this one was different if you listen to the tape and what Wilson said and the fact it was another audible, and what Shotty said. No matter the reason it pretty much screwed up the momentum.

[RiverDog]

I think he got himself into a bind by suggesting Carson was gassed when he in fact wanted to see Penney play. He did say he wanted to get him some playing time in a later interview.
I think it was an ill advised comment about Carson just to get past the issue that blew up more than he expected.

If it was just that one time, then I could agree with you. But couple these remarks with the timeout fiasco along with a few other things Pete has said in public, pretty soon a picture starts to develop.

[NorthHawk]

Is he almost out of answers for the Offense?
I hope so because it might get him to let the Offensive staff do their jobs without the same restrictions.
I think his general philosophy is out of date and definitely not compatible with todays NFL. We need variety and creativity to overcome
the limitations from OLinemen that are seriously overmatched from an elite athleticism PoV and a RB like Lynch only comes along once
in a while to cover up the inadequacies.

[idhawkman]

There's not many ways to explain this behavior. One is Anthony's conspiracy theory, another is my "professor with tenure" theory, and a third is that there is something cognitive going on with Pete. If you or anyone else has an explanation to these irrational remarks, I'm all ears.

I don't know if this makes another explanation but Pete has always been a guy who preaches that we do what we do and its up to the offense to change. Thus the lack of game planning in the first half of games. So with that in mind, he could have went into this past game with the complete idea that they were going to run one back in the first half to "wear down" the defense and then put in a fresh back in the second half to gash them. Maybe they thought they'd have kicked off more times by the half and that Carson would have been gassed. Multiple things went wrong if that is the idea they had.

1. We didn't have the ball long enough to wear down the defense.
2. We didn't run the ball enough to wear down the RB to where he needed replacing.

That all said, I don't know why he didn't sidestep the question like you said Riv and just say we wanted Penny to get some touches. It is entirely possible that he had one idea in his mind going into the game and never changed the idea regardless of the events on the field.

[idhawkman]

Another thought could be that Carson did something at half that ticked off the coaches and he didn't want to air that dirty laundry and just couldn't think of anything else to say when asked. I hope this isn't the case but if we are looking for answers, its just as plausible as some of the other reasons.

[obiken]

Lets not get caught in minutia, when you cannot block all the rest of wouldas, shouldas, and couldas, are crap.

[idhawkman]

Lets not get caught in minutia, when you cannot block all the rest of wouldas, shouldas, and couldas, are crap.

I don't know, someone says that one of our RBs was getting over 5 yards a carry. How is that not blocking?

[Hawktawk]

When someone is running the ball like Chris Carson you won't rotate backs much if at all. Give him the goddamn ball. He looks like a poor man's Adrian Peterson in his younger days and hes getting 6 and 7 carries per game PC and BS can play with their shiny new toy. Look Penneys going to be a good back, maybe real good but ride the hot hand. Id have given Carson the ball on 4th and 2 on the first possession on their 43 or whatever it was. The offense had looked decent on that first drive and we were running at will.Thats a call PC would have made back in the day as well. WTF did it matter anyway? we punt them to the 5 and they house it on a long drive anyway.Meanwhile seattle put up about 40 yards total the next 2.5 quarters.

[RiverDog]

I don't know if this makes another explanation but Pete has always been a guy who preaches that we do what we do and its up to the offense to change. Thus the lack of game planning in the first half of games. So with that in mind, he could have went into this past game with the complete idea that they were going to run one back in the first half to "wear down" the defense and then put in a fresh back in the second half to gash them. Maybe they thought they'd have kicked off more times by the half and that Carson would have been gassed. Multiple things went wrong if that is the idea they had.

1. We didn't have the ball long enough to wear down the defense.
2. We didn't run the ball enough to wear down the RB to where he needed replacing.

That all said, I don't know why he didn't sidestep the question like you said Riv and just say we wanted Penny to get some touches. It is entirely possible that he had one idea in his mind going into the game and never changed the idea regardless of the events on the field.

It's not his actions that I'm questioning. It's his post game explanations. Saying that Carson was "gassed" after special teams action when he was only out there for 3 of them doesn't make a lick of sense, nor does his calling a timeout because "time was running out" when there was still 9 seconds left on the play clock. They are irrational remarks, especially for Pete, who normally explains his thinking really well.

[HumanCockroach]

Another thought could be that Carson did something at half that ticked off the coaches and he didn't want to air that dirty laundry and just couldn't think of anything else to say when asked. I hope this isn't the case but if we are looking for answers, its just as plausible as some of the other reasons.

Absolutely possible, and certainly something that crossed my mind as well.... likely, he said something to the effect of give me the damn football... lol