I know, "Rookieisness", is not a word, then again neither were many words until Shakespeare penned them. No, no, no I am not comparing myself to Shakespeare, in fact, I am as akin to the Great Bard as Hue Jackson is to Bill Belichick.
To Hue's credit, he knows that he has to work on his clock management, challenges and dealing with the pressures of controlling the entire game while calling the offensive plays, so, yesterday was hopefully a step in his growth as a Head Coach.
There was a play on the Saints second TD drive that saw Marques Colston catch a ball over the middle and seemingly, according to new NFL Rules, not catch the ball as it moved around constantly and was even on the ground as he came down. This was a huge play because it converted a third down and set up 1st and Goal from the 1. The Raider response was to call a time-out.
Message to Hue, IF you think it may be a non catch on a critical play, don't call timeout, throw the challenge flag. If you are wrong, it will only cost you the time-out that you've already burned and you still have a challenge for later. IF you call timeout, the challenge and LOSE, you burn two timeouts.
This season is completely different from years past. Two Challenges are ample because ONLY the booth can review scoring plays. Use em' or lose em'!
It is quite possible that the time-out was called by a player who didn't like the defensive set. And, if this was the case and nobody caught Colston's "Non-Catch", then that is another thing to learn from.
Then, on the Saints final drive of the first half, Oakland sacked the quarterback to force 4th and Forever with 1:40 left on the clock.
With two timeouts left, that is when you call a timeout and get the ball back with 1:30 and one time-out left. The extra 37 seconds that were burnt from the clock represented the time it takes to run 2-4 plays.
Hue, you know I love you man and I know that we only have access to what we see and not what was going on behind the shield at these moments, but, I had to point these mistakes out.
Cheers,
Saint