Hot take: I don’t even think Saturday mismanaged the clock that badly. The Indianapolis Colts ended up losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers on a mismanaged final drive that sealed the Colts fate, but was it actually that badly managed as many in the media suggest?
Okay, everyone probably already knows that I’m a fan of Jeff Saturday, and that I have been supporting him during his time with the Colts organization as the interim head coach. So, perhaps I’m a little too biased to be commenting on this subject. Nevertheless, I still don’t believe that Saturday mismanaged the game clock during that final drive that badly, even though he has already come out and said otherwise.
Hear me out: the Colts lost due to a bad PLAY CALL, rather than a Jeff Saturday blunder of not calling a timeout.
With under a minute to go and having just gotten 14 yards or so from a Matt Ryan scramble, the Indianapolis Colts only needed to pick up three yards to get a First Down and keep their hopes alive of getting the ball into the endzone and tying the game at 24.
So, what did Parks Frazier (the Colts offensive playcaller) scheme up to get those important three yards? A Jonathan Taylor run, even though the Steelers had the offensive line gaps all covered and the clock was down to 35 seconds left.
I don’t know about how everyone else feels, but that blunder (as Taylor was immediately stuffed behind the line of scrimmage) is not on Saturday. It’s on Frazier.
Sure, Saturday could have settled the offense down by using one of his three timeouts, yet it was not necessary to do so. The Colts had just picked up 14+ yards on a crucial 2nd and long and had driven the ball all the way down to the Steelers’ 26-yard line.
If anything, it was smart that Saturday kept the offense on the field with the clock running as it not only kept the pressure on the Steelers defense as they couldn’t sub, but it also forced them to call their own plays quickly too. And, seeing how poorly the Steelers defense has played this season, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see Matt Ryan and the Colts offense find the endzone in some way or another.
Nonetheless, that didn’t happen as Parks Frazier showed his own naivete with a bad running play that not only lost yardage and time, but also killed the momentum of the Colts drive. The ball should have stayed in Matt Ryan’s hands for the remainder of that possession as he had the most experience out of anybody on the field. Besides, if they did pick up the first down and gotten the ball within the redzone, the Colts would have had around 25 seconds and two timeouts to run whatever play they wanted to tie the game.
Anyway, that’s just my take on it. Obviously, the media is having a field day at Saturday and the Colts’ expense, so I just wanted to stick up for the guy. He’s gotten so much unnecessary for literally no other reason than he was named the interim head coach over some other failed coach that these media heads are friends with.
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