Dunlap: No Excuse For Tomlin's Time Management
How in the world does this keep happening?
How does Mike Tomlin continue to --- at the end of the half and end of games --- get it so wrong?
It's time for Mike Tomlin to get his time straight; time for the Steelers head coach to understand, exactly, what time it is.
Sunday's 16-10 loss to the undefeated Cincinnati Bengals marked the umpteenth time (at least) that Tomlin's clock management skills in crunch time have come into question as he, from this view at least, positively mangled the end-game situation.
It would be one thing if this were an outlier, a one-off where Tomlin got caught off-guard and made an error. But head-scratchers as they pertain to his ability to administer the clock late in games and at the end of the first half have become epidemic.
Make zero mistake, Ben Roethlisberger's less-than-stellar showing in his first game back from injury was the prime reason the Steelers couldn't give the Bengals their first loss. That said, when the Steelers still had a chance to tie --- and perhaps go ahead --- their head coach didn't put the offense in optimal position to operate.
Instead he botched a late-game clock situation. In truth, Tomlin doing so is something that now borders on being expected rather than a surprise.
You know the summation of the situation by now: Trailing 13-10 without the ball, a little more than 2:00 left and armed with all three of his timeouts, Tomlin refused to use any before the warning hit.
Instead, Tomlin watched a valuable 38 seconds run off the clock before the 2-minute warning hit when expected thinking (for every other coach) would have been to burn a timeout prior to the warning.
No one knows if the Bengals' playcalls would have been any different had Tomlin called timeout sooner --- or if their field goal might have turned into a touchdown --- but if all things would have held, the Steelers' offense would have been given more time to operate.
"To me, having the timeout was more significant than the 38 seconds," Tomlin said. "[The Bengals] are a great situational football team, specifically in the 2-minute. We wanted the ability to work the middle of the field."
Sorry, Mike. I'm not buying what you are selling here.
Time was of the essence, not an ability to work the middle of the field.
On top of that, there's a widely held adage in football that lends itself to calling a timeout before the 2-minute warning. The adage is simple: It's much easier to control the clock when your team has the football than it is when you are playing defense.
Tomlin, quite simply, should have tried to get his team the football as soon as possible --- and by extension with the most time left --- in that situation.
By my non-scientific estimation, the Steelers' offense would have had at least two more plays had Tomlin called a timeout on the high side of the 2-minute warning.
Would you like Roethlisberger's chances at finding Antonio Brown or Martavis Bryant from about the 20? I don't know if I like the chances, but I will tell you this: I like the chances at three cracks to get there rather than just one.
This clock debacle comes on the heels of a Chargers game just a few weeks ago when no one on Tomlin's staff recognized an 18-second erroneous runoff that could have cost the Steelers mightily. Lucky for Tomlin, Le'Veon Bell scored a touchdown on the final play of that game to give the Steelers a 24-20 victory and that clock calamity resulted in a league apology and the suspension of an official.
It could have, however, been much worse. And it was news to Tomlin that his team got jobbed out of time. How no one on his staff caught such a glaring error, I will never know.
Perhaps Mike Tomlin should find himself a "Clock Coach." Or, I'm sure as the convoluted, longwinded way the NFL elects to describe jobs, the guy would be dubbed something such as "Assistant to the Head Coach/Time Management Specialist In Charge of Organizational Timepiece Regulation and Quality Control/Chronometer Administration and Supervision Support Aide" or something like that.
Simply, a "Clock Coach."
I don't know where you'd find one of these guys --- maybe under the Kaufmann's Clock (Is that still there?) or up on Mount Washington next to that flashing neon clock, but nonetheless, Tomlin needs a guy.
And I don't know who'd be in line for such a job.
Maybe Flava Flav?
Perhaps Morris Day?
The other Big Ben?
Again, I don't know who --- but he needs to hire someone because it has become glaringly evident Mike Tomlin stumbles a bit when he's forced to make decisions regarding clock management.
Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weekdays from 5:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.
