In week 11, the Bears led the Ravens by three with two minutes remaining. After the two-minute warning, Joe Flacco completed an 11-yard pass that brought Baltimore to the Bears’ 16-yard line. The Ravens next snap took place with 1:21 remaining, and Ray Rice picked up 11 yards to put the Ravens at the Chicago 5-yard line with 75 seconds left.

Baltimore then let the clock run, snapping the 1st-and-goal play with 36 seconds left (Ray Rice ran for three yards). After waiting a few seconds, the Ravens called timeout with 23 seconds remaining. On second down, the Ravens ran Rice again, but he lost a yard, and Baltimore used its final timeout with 11 seconds left. Flacco’s third down pass went incomplete, and Baltimore kicked a field goal to force overtime, giving Chicago the ball back with just three seconds.

This was the rare case where both teams managed to lower their odds of winning with poor clock management. Baltimore had two timeouts and 36 seconds to run three plays. The worst option would be to call timeout after the 1st down and 2nd down plays: the goal should be to keep a timeout for after the third down play. By saving that timeout, the team retains the option of running on 3rd down, and also has a safety net in the event of a sack. There’s no reason why a team needs to call one timeout after 1st-and-goal and another after 2nd-and-goal. For a man who sleeps at the office to get every edge he can, John Harbaugh lowered his team’s odds of winning by not knowing when to use his timeouts. This is not just an academic point, either: Flacco nearly lost the third down snap, which could have ended in an embarrassing loss for the Ravens. ^[1]Also, the predictable run-run-pass playcalling won’t win Harbaugh any awards, either. A second down pass to the end zone solves all of these problems, too.

But Harbaugh’s poor use of timeouts — while inexcusable — didn’t lower his team’s odds of winning significantly. That task was handled by Marc Trestman. After Rice ran down to the 5-yard line, Trestman should have called timeout with 75 seconds remaining — instead, he allowed Baltimore to run the clock all way to 36 seconds left (Baltimore snapped it with 3 seconds left on the play clock). On that play, Rice nearly ran for a touchdown, which shows how foolish this decision was by Trestman. The mere fact that Baltimore bled the clock for 39 seconds is prima facie evidence that the Bears erred by not calling timeout. Football is a zero-sum game, so if it was good for Baltimore to let the clock run down, it must have been bad for Chicago to allow the Ravens to do that. Think of it this way: would Ravens fans have been happy or sad to see Trestman call timeout in that situation?

The interesting part of this situation is we actually got to find out what Trestman was thinking. Adam Hoge transcribed the head coach’s Monday press conference, where he said:

When you call timeouts at the end of halves, you want to call them in succession if you can. If you’re calling them just hit or miss, there’s really no value on that….

[T]he fact of the matter is that there was really no time to use the timeouts. And when you’re in a two-minute situation and if you use your timeouts and there’s no way you can call them in succession, you give them more time on each and every play to get the people out there that they want to complete that, to get that play done….

So really, only the first time where I considered really calling a timeout was after Ray Rice had the 11-yard run down to the 5-yard line. And he took that ball with, I think it was about 1:16 when he had that ball. That was the first time. I was down there with the official. That was the first time. But when you put it all together, the numbers all together, if you call three timeouts right there in succession, you’re still only getting the ball back at 18 seconds. OK? If you let it run, they’re in a 2-minute mode and now they’ve got to call two timeouts.

So a couple things come into play with them using their two timeouts. Number one, they didn’t call a timeout on the first one which means they had to call a play out of their 2-minute package instead of using their red zone package. So that’s number one. They didn’t call a timeout and get into different personnel groupings. They called a play. And then by using their two timeouts, we knew what they had to do on third down. They had to throw it. Because there wasn’t enough time left to do anything else.

So we cut the percentages in half of run to pass and then it was just one big leap of faith. If we had called three timeouts in a row, we’ve got 19, 18 seconds left at the max

Let’s give Trestman credit for providing the most detailed explanation I’ve ever seen from a head coach. But the revealing part is the insane assumptions, namely that the Bears were going to stop the Ravens on three straight plays. Trestman’s math isn’t wrong: the timeouts are not that valuable if the goal is to get the ball back with time to score if you assume that the Ravens will not score a touchdown or throw an incomplete pass on 1st, 2nd, or 3rd down. ^[2]Assume the Bears call timeout after the Rice run to the five. Then the Ravens run on 1st-and-goal from the 5 with 1:15 to go, and the Bears can call timeout with 1:10 to go. On 2nd down, the play … Continue reading

But if even one of those three plays are an incomplete pass or a touchdown, the math changes considerably. And of the 54 situations this year that a team had 1st-and-goal from the 5, only once (Seattle against Jacksonville) did a team run three straight times and not score, the situation Trestman was calculating. Instead, what if just one incomplete pass is thrown (much less two or three): now, the kick would be good with 57 seconds left.

With Devin Hester as the kickoff returner, the Bears always have a chance to bring that back for a touchdown. But let’s assume Chicago gets the ball at the 20, in a tie game, with 57 seconds left and no timeouts. How likely are the Bears to kick a field goal?

Detroit, with no timeouts, went 80 yards in 48 seconds to score a touchdown to beat Dallas. In week 1, the Jets got the ball down 1 with 34 seconds left and kicked a field goal to beat Tampa Bay. Just last year, the Bears took over with 20 seconds left and one timeout down by 3, and kicked a field goal to force overtime against Seattle. It’s not a likely scenario, of course, but the Bears would have had a legitimate chance to end the game in regulation had Trestman used his timeouts correctly.

But there’s an even more obvious reason why the Bears would want to call timeout other than a chance to steal a win in regulation. What if the Ravens had scored a touchdown? Baltimore could have scored on that first down play, and the Bears would have got the ball down by 4, with two timeouts and 1:10 left. There’s still a 13% chance Chicago can win the game there. Had Baltimore scored on the first down play without the timeout, the Bears would instead with three timeouts but only 30 seconds left.

Now I agree with Trestman that by calling timeout, you allow the Ravens to regroup and bring in their preferred personnel. Of course, the Bears defense gets to do that, too. But even if the Ravens have a slightly higher chance of scoring a touchdown, you still have to call timeouts to give your team a chance to win. If the Ravens wound up scoring a touchdown on 3rd down, Trestman would have been lambasted by the media for failing to call timeout earlier in the drive.