JTC111
Viva la resistance!!!
Of course you're gambling on a coin flip, even with the new rules. If Carolina wins the toss and scores a TD, game over.You're not "gambling on a coin flip" with the new OT rules. Calling those timeouts made it easier for Carolina to score a TD. I don't think there's any question about that.
You can argue the other side...maybe we hold them to a FG and then have a minute plus to get a FG the other way.
I just think we called them too early. You want to call one after 2nd down? Fine. But we were pulling those out on early downs and I think that hurt us.
If we don't call them there, Carolina runs at the end zone 2 times, taking 1: 20 + the time it took to run the plays off the clock trying to win. And if they don't win, they kick a chip shot FG on 4th to tie. They were going to run anyway. Even though we were under two minutes, they had plenty of time because they had the ball and I'm pretty sure they were already inside the 10 when we called our last two timeouts.
Better to have no time outs but enough time on the clock to get a shot at a win, than to have 3 timeouts and not enough time to get down field.