What Were They Thinking: Bowles sinks Jets by saving timeout; Tomsula's bizarre logic
What Were They Thinking is a weekly post that helps you relive the foolish decisions from the week in the NFL. Enjoy the insanity.
Bowles misuses his timeouts
The New York Jets had a legitimate shot to take down the New England Patriots on Sunday, but Todd Bowles may have sunk his own team.
With the Patriots ahead 23-20 at the two minute warning in the fourth, Tom Brady found Danny Amendola for a 7-yard gain inside the red zone. The clock was moving after the catch, but the Jets still had three timeouts at the time, meaning they could easily use one to stop it. Bowles opted not to, and 40 seconds ticked off before New England had to run another play.
That play was a touchdown to Rob Gronkowski, leaving New York suddenly down 10 with a little more than a minute to go. The Jets quickly drove into field goal range and added three points to give themselves a chance at an onside kick with 18 seconds to play. They miraculously recovered, but ran out of time for a tying score.
If Bowles had called that timeout, the Jets would have had another 40 seconds inside New England territory to try to force overtime with a tying score. That would have been more than enough time, if not for Bowles' brain cramp.
Tomsula's bizarre logic
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Tomsula appears to be living by the George Costanza code of logic. Costanza enjoyed some brief success using the philosophy; if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right. But things aren't working as well for Tomsula.
Down 20-3 to the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday with 4:08 to play in the game and facing a fourth-and-4, the logical thing for the 49ers to do is go for it. However, Tomsula does the opposite and punts.
It's anything but a never-say-die attitude and something that was shockingly applauded by commentator Phil Simms, but Tomsula seems to be content at this point with taking the loss. He's pulled out the white flag and surrended to a Seahawks' defense that punished Colin Kaepernick all night. At least that's what we thought. When Seattle gets the ball back, though, Tomsula starts using his timeouts. If he wanted to continue to pursue a win, why punt it back to Seattle on a very makeable fourth down?
A minute later, San Francisco had the ball back looking at a fourth-and-3 with the same score - so they have to go for it now, right? Nope. Boom goes the punt. Another headscratcher.
So Seattle has it back again and what does Tomsula do? You guessed it, another timeout. The Seahawks eventually ran out the clock, putting Tomsula out of his misery.
Payton burns through his challenges
New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton seemed to be in a race to unload his challenges Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts, burning through them both before the first quarter came to a close.
Neither had any chance of being overturned, and the second one was the most foolish. Saints tight end Ben Watson caught a pass on third-and-9, but clearly dropped the ball while falling to the ground. If Dez Bryant's grab in the playoffs last year was incomplete, anyone could see Watson's attempt on Sunday had no shot of being ruled a catch.
The challenge was ridiculous for three reasons: It had no chance of going Payton's way, it now meant the Saints would be out of challenges for the rest of the game, and Watson was short of the first down anyway. So if by some miracle it did get overturned, New Orleans would still be looking at fourth down.
Quick Hits
- The Lions faced a third-and-13 down 28-17 in the fourth and ran a vanilla running play to Theo Riddick. Not surprisingly, it failed, Detroit punted, and eventually lost.
- Near midfield, Cleveland punted down 17-6 in the fourth quarter when facing a very makeable fourth-and-2.
- Jeff Fisher and the Rams opted for a 63-yard field goal try instead of going for it on fourth-and-3. The kick missed.
- With the Texans down 44-20 and four minutes left to go, Arian Foster reportedly tore his Achilles. Why on earth was he still in the game?