Nor did the foolish personal foul by the back-up TE. But yeah, point taken. A weird use of timeouts by the 'chek.

..didn't even mention that the 4th-and-1 play was successful, although negated by the time out. I don't watch as much football on TV as most of you guys, but it seems that so often the most critical situations and conundrums go unmentioned by the boys in the booth.

This is an excellent example of a coach trying to be too involved in the game. There are 11 players out on the field. The head coach is not one of them. Let them play.

I was going to advocate for the NFL to restore the exclusive privilege of calling time-outs to the players on the field. But upon further review it is too much fun watching fools like Belichick make asses of themselves.

One of the things that have made the Pats so great over the course of their run is that they rarely beat themselves. The system they have in place has given them a chance to win most of their games this season even though they lost one of the few elite QBs left in the game. Between the timeouts, Gaffney's drop and that stupid unnecessary roughness penalty, the Cassell-led Pats came close to winning its sixth game and taking sole possession of first place.

I'm not a rah-rah Patriots fan, but don't expect to see that type of performance from them again in the near future. They might not win it all, but they'll stay in the hunt.

Adriana Sage is kicking my ass, by the way...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't delay of game carry a ten yard penalty AND loss of down? This would have resulted in 3rd and 18, not 2nd.

Is 12 men on the field delay of game? I would have thought it's technically a procedure or illegal formation penalty, Whatever the case, 12 men on the field, like delay of game, is 5 yards, repeat the down. The down was first down, so it would have been first and 5. Even if you're right, it would have been 1st and 10 at the 35, not 3rd and 18.

Thanks for the clarification

Now that the season's half over, I wonder if King will rethink some of his preseason picks. The Giants, in particular, were dissed by him (and many others) as highly unlikely to repeat their championship run. But right now I don't see anyone in the NFC who looks nearly as good as they do. And are the Titans as good as their undefeated record suggests?

Yeah Kaufman, keep picking against the fins. We LOVE that.

sincerely,

Phin Nation

I would argue that throwing the challenge flag for this would have still been inexcusable even if Belichek had won. He would have kept his timeout but he would have lost one of his two challenges. There's no excuse to squander a potential challenge in a close game over something so inconsequential.

Regardless, the whole thing reminded me of the brilliant piece Michael Bérubé wrote after the Giants were flagged for having 12 men on the field in the Super Bowl, and how that play proves that hockey is an inherently superior game to football.

http://crookedtimber.org/2008/02/04/on-certainty-and-illegal-substitutions/

You're completely wrong about everything because you overvalue the importance of a time out.

At the end of a game, three time outs = one first down by the opposing offense. Since the Colts seemed to be able to pick up first downs more than half the time when they wanted to, I see no justification for hoarding timeouts. Did we not all see the difficulties that the Pats' secondary had covering Reggie Wayne, Anthony Gonzalez, and Dallas Clark?

The challenge was simply bad luck. Belichick saw that the Pats had snapped the ball before one of the defenders running off the field had made it to the sideline. What he didn't know, and had no reason to expect would be true, was that this defender was the 11th, not the 12th. And why would anybody think that Indy was trying their best to keep only 10 defenders on the field?

The claim that Cassel should have taken a 5-yard penalty rather than take a time out shows that your priorities are really out of whack. It is utterly routine to take a time out rather than a 5-yard penalty. Offenses are trying to gain yardage, not lose it after all.

I agree with the general sentiment about the third time out: Belichick should have picked the FG or the short-yardage play and stuck with the choice. But I don't think one extra time out would have made the difference at the end.

Far more costly than the lack of time outs were

a) Jabar Gaffney dropping a TD pass that hit his hands perfectly

b) David Thomas getting a killer personal foul penalty that created the 4th and long at the end of the game.

When Matt Cassel is your QB, you don't hoard time outs in the hope that he'll be able to use them efficiently to run a 2-minute drill at the end of the game. We have no reason to believe Cassel can run a 2-minute drill at all. He is a below-average starting QB, and that's something the coaching staff has to keep in mind at all times.

Whispers The claim that Cassel should have taken a 5-yard penalty rather than take a time out shows that your priorities are really out of whack. It is utterly routine to take a time out rather than a 5-yard penalty. Offenses are trying to gain yardage, not lose it after all.

It is utterly routine for people to play the Lottery. That doesn't make it not stupid.

You seem to be saying that because A) The Patriots couldn't stop the Colts (who absolutely BLITZKRIEGED New England to the tune of 18 points!) and B) The Patriots couldn't score in the two-minute drill, there was no point in them saving their timeouts. They were going to lose anyway.

So, following that line of reasoning, why take the field in the first place?