Quote:
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501
Eberflus is no doubt the biggest culprit. But it just feels like it’s having it both ways. If he has no authority to call a sensible timeout without his coaches say so, then he also doesn’t have authority to change the final playcall. If he’s truly a puppet to his head coach then he would just run the play as was called, which I assume would have been a quick hitter instead of sending the entire team deep.
|
Again, I never said he didn't have the authority to call a TO; obviously the guy with the green dot on his helmet has the 'authority' to call a TO. My point is, imo rookie QBs rarely call TOs. That's the HC's job. I mean, how many times have we seen rooks forget to check the clock as time is winding down and get flagged for delay-of-game? Happens pretty much every week, right? And good/great HCs see it and make the call themselves, correct?
Or, take Herbert's rookie year, he was driving his team down the field for a tying/go-ahead score (don't remember which exactly) and they got the ball down inside the 10-yd line, at which point Herbert tried to hurry up to the line and run the next play. A TO should've been called there, so they could get the right play in, settle everyone down, get the right players on the field, etc.
but Staley allowed things to happen, and they ended up turning the ball over on an INT or a fumble or whatever, that cost them the game. It was an obvious TO situation, but they failed to do what we all thought was beyond simple in the GDT that day.
Should/could Herbert have called a TO/spiked it there? Empirically, yes, obviously.
but you're asking a rookie QB in the heat and stress of the moment to make that decision, when they have a million other things running through the heads, while a OC is trying to get the playcall in, etc. It's the HC's job to see the situation, and using his decades of experience to mitigate the stress of the moment, and take that very critical decision out of a rook's hands, imo.
As for the change of play, I think that again was just a panic moment for a rookie QB when he realized they'd run out of time. He went gunslinger mode, or what we call "Jackie Channed it," in aviation parlance. All instinct, no rational thought.