The etiquette of concession

This is not exactly a world-shaking issue, but it’s my blog and I’ll post if I want to.

The end of the Detroit-Tampa Bay game yesterday featured a really strange sequence. After Detroit intercepted the ball at the Tampa Bay 29 with 1:33 to go, the Lions had an eight-point lead and Tampa Bay had one remaining time out. What this meant is that Detroit could, with careful time management, run out the clock without having to get a first down. Basically, the Lions could do a three kneel downs and, assuming Tampa Bay used its last time out immediately after the first kneel down, face fourth down with maybe five seconds to go. At which point their QB Jared Goff could roll out and hurl the ball through the end zone, killing the remainder of the clock. Or in the alternative they could have Goff try to run around a bit rather than kneel down immediately after each snap and kill the remainder the clock that way. Anyway, to do this the Lions needed to snap the ball with no more than a second or two left on the play clock after the second and third down plays. It was doable in other words, but not simple and automatic, as it would have been if there had been 75 seconds left instead of 93.

But here’s where things got strange. Tampa Bay didn’t call its last time out after Detroit’s first down kneel down, and then weirdly enough the Lions snapped the ball with a full 15 seconds left on the play clock on second down, and with 12 seconds left on the play clock on third down. At that point, Tampa Bay could have called time out with 35 seconds to go, and the Lions would have fourth and 13 from the Tampa Bay 32. They would then have to attempt a long field goal, which given that they don’t have an elite kicker and it would be a big pressure situation would be I’m guessing maybe a 50/50 proposition. If he missed, Tampa Bay would have 30 seconds to go 61 yards for a TD and a tying two-point conversion. A long shot for sure, but many far stranger things have happened at the end of football games, and Tampa Bay had been carving up the Detroit secondary.

But Tampa Bay’s coach Todd Bowles never used the time out! It was as if by not using the time out after the first down play, he was signaling to Detroit’s coach Dan Campbell that he was conceding the game right then and there. And again, if he had used the time out right away, Detroit almost surely would have been able to run out the clock with some careful clock management and strategery. But the thing is, Campbell quite recklessly gave Bowles a golden opportunity to defect after this highly informal offer, if that’s how we want to think about it, by not managing the clock at all, and thus creating the conditions that would leave Tampa Bay with a real shot to tie and eventually win the game.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ending quite like that, and I hope at least a few of you want to kick it around.