Hiring a Clock management specialist

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

We hired someone to advise McD on coaches challenges, and we still suck at those. 

 

I don't think a clock specialist would be useful. A Head Coach has a LOT going on between plays, are they supposed to delay the entire process waiting to hear from the clock specialist if they should use a timeout or not? Is the clock specialist going to chime in and say whether or not we can run the ball? No passes unless it's guaranteed the receiver can get out of bounds?

 

Logistically I just don't see the value there. 

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

52 minutes ago, Returntoglory said:

Seems to be, the Achilles heel of McD is Clock management. 

 

"The head coach is responsible for managing the clock in the NFL to maximize a team's chances of winning or tying the game in regulation. Clock management is a significant part of the game, not just in the final moments. ".

 

That being said, would it not be wise for Beane to hire a clock management specialist?

 

Maybe he can't think that fast on his feet?

I have been beating this drum for many years. Makes no sense for any head coach to have this role.

 

HC is like the CEO. Get an operations guy to handle clock management and challenges on game day. 

[MrEpsYtown]

I work with a person of authority who can not do his job. Once the powers that be saw how inept he was, instead of firing him, they hired a secretary to take a bunch of the job off his plate. Once that wasn't enough they hired an assistant to take more off his plate. Then finally they took some of his responsibilities off of him and moved it to another department. And you know the rest, he still sucks at his job and makes more money than most. The powers that be are clutching to the idea that they hired the right guy instead of admitting their failure. This can't be where we are headed. At a certain point, things are just not working. 

 

So for coach, he doesn't call offensive or defensive plays, he doesn't coach a position, he has a specialist up top who tells him when to challenge, so now let's add a specialist to help him make critical decisions with time management? Seriously? So what does he actually do and what is the point of having him? Shades of office space Bob meetings.   

[Logic]

16 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

What are the examples from this season that directly cost teams games?

 

Eberflus letting the clock run out against the Packers. Fired the next day.

 

What others?

I would first take umbrage with the notion that McDermott's blunder -- while egregious -- COST the bills the game. They gave up 44 points. They allowed a blocked punt to be returned for a touchdown. Based on the frequency with which the Rams converted 3rd downs on Sunday, it's certainly no guarantee that the Bills would have been able to stop the Rams three times and get the ball back even if McDermott HAD managed the clock correctly.

Hurt the team's chances to win? Certainly. Reduced the likelihood of victory? Absolutely. But "directly cost his team the game" seems a bridge slightly too far, because it ignores the defensive futility and assumes that the Bills would have been victorious if McDermott not mismanaged the clock.

Clock management has been an ongoing issue across the league for years. 

To start with, Andy Reid has famously had clock management issues. A few articles:

https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2019/1/18/18185839/andy-reid-kansas-city-chiefs-clock-mismanagement-timeouts

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/14585604/andy-reid-offers-little-explanation-kansas-city-chiefs-clock-management-loss-get-done

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/reids-awful-clock-decision-kills-chiefs-triggers-eagles-fans/177775/


Beyond Reid, here are some other articles talking about the problem in general:


https://www.si.com/nfl/2016/09/05/nfl-clock-management-andy-reid-homer-smith

Other coaches compared clock management to surgery or giving birth or even a person’s final days. In his book Homer Smith listed eight ways that managing the clock is like a pilot’s handling a mid-flight Mayday. The last one: “In neither can you make a major mistake and survive.”

“A lot of coaches don’t want to mess with [clock management],” says DeCamillis. “It’s not a real sexy topic. It’s not how coaches get jobs, being great clock managers. But this is where games are being won and lost.



https://athlonsports.com/nfl/nfls-clock-management-mess

The number of variables that swirl around a late-game situation — or even in the closing minutes of a half — is astounding. Coaches must deal with down-and-distance, timeouts remaining, field position and time left on the clock, and that doesn't even begin to cover intangibles like which players are performing well in the moment or how various sectors of a game plan have worked to that point. Trying to find calm and reason amidst sideline chaos is extremely difficult.

"To think that in the heat of battle with the play clock going that you can just refer to the manual for an answer is not realistic," Pitcher says. "You can prepare and have scenarios in your mind, but you still have to react to situations.

"The goal is to develop some guidelines that give us the best opportunity to succeed." 
 

This season, Pitcher will do more than work with QBs. New Bengals coach Zac Taylor has added another duty to his job description: clock management assistant. It's not an official title, and no one will find it on his business card or in his official Bengals bio. But at a time when information is exploding throughout the NFL, and teams are paying more attention than ever to how they manage every part of the game — especially in the crucial late stages of the halves — it makes sense that Taylor would look for someone to help.




https://www.phillyvoice.com/times-not-actually-yours-psychology-poor-clock-management-football/
 

It's nearly impossible to think of a coach that excels in clock management. If you can think of one with a spotless reputation in that regard, odds are they haven't been coaching very long. Even Bill Belichick, respected as one of the smartest coaches in the league, was criticized heavily following his team's loss to the Broncos in the AFC title game. That's because we rarely credit them when a late-game decision works, and all too often focus blame on their decision-making when things go wrong. 
 

That is a result of our troubling inability as a whole to evaluate the process. Instead, much more attention is paid to the result. When talking about how the game impacted playoff seeding, that may be all that really matters. But when attempting to analyze why and how the result came to be, the process should carry far more weight.

 

 

[billsbackto81]

58 minutes ago, Returntoglory said:

Seems to be, the Achilles heel of McD is Clock management. 

 

"The head coach is responsible for managing the clock in the NFL to maximize a team's chances of winning or tying the game in regulation. Clock management is a significant part of the game, not just in the final moments. ".

 

That being said, would it not be wise for Beane to hire a clock management specialist?

 

Maybe he can't think that fast on his feet?

He'd be as useful as our officiating specialist. 

[sullim4]

This is exactly what Ernie Adams did for Belichick.

 

I don't see why you wouldn't have someone dedicated to this in the booth.  This is what fans do at home watching the game... and they are generally pretty good at enumerating the options and understanding the consequences of each choice.  They can do this because they don't have their OC/DC in their ear and aren't busy calling plays, getting the right personnel groups out there, etc.

[Lionel Hutz]

Crazy how so many Bills' fans still can't see that McDermott is the problem. 

[Livinginthepast]

After 13 seconds I would have hoped that ALL of these issues about playcalling and having contingency plans for the end of games would have been identified, addressed, a protocol put in place and solved. But it keeps happening. Whenever McD has you convinced he has turned a corner and is ready to play chess with the big boys of coaching he reverts back to a kid learning to play checkers who wanders into a multiple jump where he loses half his pieces to his opponent. He simply is not able to think fast on his feet and doesnt seem to consider the next few moves in advance. Yes an advisor in the booth might be a good idea but McD would have to listen and react quickly for this to work. I just cant see that!

[wakingfane]

Can we hire Tom Brady?!?!  How much is Fox paying him?

Edited December 10 by wakingfane

[The Jokeman]

47 minutes ago, Billsatlastin2018 said:

Likely. McD is a very good HC. 
 

But end of half/ game time management is clearly his Achilles heel! 
 

We don’t want a ‘very good’ Andy Reid Eagles HC.

We want the Andy Chiefs SB version!

 

We can all point to multiple games where McD kept TOs in his pocket going to the half,during the early part of his/Allen’s tenure.

 

We can all point to his misuse of taking TOs in gams as critical as ‘13 Seconds’, plus being clued out about what to do.

 

Likewise, we can all point out to several failures in the use of time- bleeding it off too fast and setting up nada OR most critically, not letting it bleed down to a tie/win situation with ZERO time left for the opposition to come back!

 

THAT IS A CRITICAL, CRITICAL COMPONENT OF BEING A CHAMPIONSHIP HC COACH!

 

If we were being charitable, we’d give him a ‘D’ in these types of games!

 

Bonus negative marks:

 

He can’t ***** count the number of players on the field for the final plays! 🙄

 

Good enough for participation playoffs trophies.

 

Never, ever for Lombardi!

It's not his job to count players, it's the players playing ST, haven't you ever seen players do it on the field in the past? But I know blame the HC for everything just cuz. 

[Doc Brown]

There used to be this joke that the Eagles should have a relief coach come in for Reid in the final five minutes in the game.  I wonder what he did personally to get much better at it or did he hire someone?

[wakingfane]

You know they are all talking on the headsets, including the coordinators,... he should just make it a policy to defer these decisions to his coordinators since he's obviously not good at it,  they are both quick on their feet (mentally),  and they both want to be head coaches eventually... they have got to do something different.  Being uber prepared and thinking you've got every scenario perfectly pegged ahead of time obviously isn't working

Edited December 10 by wakingfane

[Doc Brown]

2 minutes ago, The Jokeman said:

It's not his job to count players, it's the players playing ST, haven't you ever seen players do it on the field in the past? But I know blame the HC for everything just cuz. 

Plus, by volunteering at his press conference that they only had nine men on the field he subtly threw Smiley under the bus.

[Logic]

13 minutes ago, Lionel Hutz said:

Crazy how so many Bills' fans still can't see that McDermott is the problem. 

I'm just curious: does he get credit for the Bills' 10 wins this season, or does he only get blame for the losses?

[Bockeye]

What’s funny is listening to the live broadcasts and esp with Romo or Brady announcing, they could prob get 90% of the calls right. 
 

Things like:

”they have to pass here because they don’t want to burn a TO”

 

”He definitely only had one foot in bounds”

 

etc, etc….

 

They could have an 18yo watching the live broadcast relaying the important commentary to the coach and probably improve considerably.  
 

To Logic’s point - it’s an issue league wide. 

[Ned Flanders]

I've been yelling at the TV from my couch that I could do better at clock management.  I'm uniquely qualified for the job.  Anyone have BBB's email address?

[ScotSHO]

So it was McD's job to change the play call once the ball is spotted after the PI and the 25 second play clock is started after a penalty?  Over a headset?  When Brady is calling the play into Josh?  This is some revisionist Monday morning QB hindsight crap.

 

The mistake was first caused by the OC, and then by the QB not freelancing and calling a complimentary pass with the personnel given (which is a big ask for any QB, even TB12 would admit that).  The OC has to know the situation.  Our defensive oriented HC is not an active part of that information exchange.  Imagine if the HC was trying to talk over Brady while he's calling in the typically overly verbose play call.

 

This does lend credence to having an offensive HC.  Maybe they'd think of it before the horse leaves the barn, but others routinely goof up these situations too.

 

 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

1 hour ago, Returntoglory said:

Seems to be, the Achilles heel of McD is Clock management. 

 

"The head coach is responsible for managing the clock in the NFL to maximize a team's chances of winning or tying the game in regulation. Clock management is a significant part of the game, not just in the final moments. ".

 

That being said, would it not be wise for Beane to hire a clock management specialist?

 

Maybe he can't think that fast on his feet?

 

In the case of 13 seconds it sounds like McD had told the ST coach to kick it in the field of play so wasn't on him.  This past week I do question if there was also some type of miscommunications on the field as if they were running "the Orchard Park Snowplow", why wasn't there a RB behind him to help push him forward like there normally is?  I tend to question if that was the called play??

 

One of Mc'D strong points is he'll rarely blame anyone else and just keep it internally so we'll never know for certain.

[finn]

57 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

I clicked the thread to type this exactly.

 

It's a major part of the job description. It would be like me telling my boss they need to hire an assistant for me who knows how to use MS Office products because I cant figure them out.

Yeah, but look at this way: McDermott is doing an excellent job (I think) developing the players and a creating a successful team culture. In fact, he might be elite in these respects. However, he sucks at time management. If a specialist can convert just one loss into a win, isn't it worth their salary? The Bills have already brought in an an expert on challenges; bring in an expert on clock management and let McDermott continue what he does well. 

 

In fact, I wonder if in a few years hiring specialists for play challenges and clock management will be a league-wide practice. It's only "a major part of the job description" if the Bills want it that way. Besides, the final decision is still McDermott's. But this way, he doesn't have to rely on his piss-poor judgment in crunch time. 

[Artem Lipatov]

Many clever men begin making mistakes under pressure. McD maybe good in organizing process, preparing the team during the week, but he obviously chokes in final minutes of close games. 

 

Maybe Bills should have another decision maker in last seconds with more poise and quicker reaction. There are people who become better under pressure in clutch moments, Josh Allen for example.