“INSANELY DUMB”: Tampa Bay Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles’ BIZARRE gametime decision has NFL fans questioning his faith in Tom Brady
Follow Us
Todd Bowles made an unusual decision late in the game against the Cleveland Browns.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ woes continue as the team fell to a 5-6 record this season following their loss to the Cleveland Browns. The game went into overtime and Tampa did compete hard, however; it was not enough to win the game.
One of the biggest issues for the Bucs in this game was the team’s clock management. For some reason, Head Coach Todd Bowles decided to run the ball at the end of regulation rather than allow Tom Brady a chance to throw the ball and seal the game.
Tampa’s issues with the clock began on the last offensive drive of the Cleveland Browns. The team lost a yard on their third down play and were in a 4th and 10 situation at Tampa’s 12-yard line. The Browns were running the clock down, and the Bucs decided to let it run instead of calling for a timeout to stop the clock.
If Tampa had taken a timeout, they could have had more time on the clock and despite the Browns scoring on the play, they would have had a shot to win the game without ot having to go to overtime.
Did Todd Bowles make a mistake by not allowing Tom Brady to throw the ball?
Tampa didn’t go for the timeout and as a result, the Browns took advantage of this and ran the clock down to a position where there were only 37 seconds left. Now in a situation such as this, every second counts, and Tampa let 33 seconds go to waste.
Todd Bowles, however, did not regret this decision of his. In the post-game press conference, the coach had this to say regarding his decisions, “No, that clock was going to run down, we didn’t have enough time to stop it right there, so it was overtime, right there, right off the top, once we couldn’t get the other play, Julio made a great play, then we couldn’t get there, we were going to overtime.”
From the sound of it, Todd Bowles appears to have accepted the fact that they had to go to overtime rather early. All Tampa needed, even after the Browns scored, was to get enough yardage to get the ball down the field enough to kick a field goal.
Keep in mind they still had 3 timeouts left and could have used them, but they did not. When the Bucs’ offense came out, Julio Jones was able to get 26 yards on a second-down play, the subsequent play was a run play in which Rachaad White was able to get a few yards in. However, even after this play, Tampa did not make use of their timeouts.
“We said if we didn’t get yards on the first down on the play, we wouldn’t call timeout. We would probably let the clock run. If Brady saw something, he could throw it, but we didn’t get any yards on that play, we got one or two yards with Rachaad and we were backed up,” Bowles was quoted as saying.
Speaking on why Brady was not given a chance to throw the ball, Bowles had this to say, “If we had thrown a pick and the ball would have went the other way and they would have kicked the game-winning field goal, so I didn’t do it.”
That is a reasonable concern, but when Tom Brady is your quarterback, it should not be a question if you would throw the ball or not. Bowles did not take this risk and as a result, the Bucs ended up losing the game in overtime. Todd Bowles’ faith in Tom Brady appears to have decreased, as this was one situation where it was worth taking a risk by allowing Brady to throw the ball.
Do follow us on: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
Stay Updated!
Sumedh Joshi
(2235 Articles Published)