On a weekend full of curious time management decisions, Colts coach Jim Caldwell’s timeout towards the end of regulation against Jacksonville was the worst.
We already discussed this one at length Monday. Caldwell took an unnecessarily huge risk for a low reward, and he paid dearly for it. The Colts coach stuck by the decision Monday.
“What we look at is this: First of all, you never know if you’re going to get the ball back in those situations. But the big thing we look at is if we can get the ball back for our offense, particularly on the road,” Caldwell said via the Indianapolis Star. “We don’t necessarily want to go to overtime. If we can win it in regulation, we want to give it a shot.”
That all makes sense. If there was more time on the clock and the Jaguars didn’t have a 2nd-and-two. In a very best case scenario, the Colts would have got the ball back with no timeouts on their own 20-yard line with about 20 seconds left.
Bill Polian talked about the decision on his radio show. According to Stampede Blue, Polian said Caldwell wasn’t eager to go to overtime because the defense was struggling. (Yet Caldwell thought they’d stuff the Jaguars twice in a row on second-and-two.)
The Colts should have been happy Jack Del Rio was playing for overtime, because a coin flip was preferable to keeping the Colts defense on the field in regulation.