* And to think the Andy Reid is in the top half of NFL coaches. Of course, about 1/3 of coaches get fired every year, so that is not saying much.
Clock management, penalties, etc., are what separate the Patriots from most other teams. The Patriots don’t beat themselves by doing stupid stuff.
* They also exploit an inefficient market that undervalues White players.
* Do a jury trial solo sometime, and see how you feel about the time management of Reid, Garrett, et al. Those guys have a lot of stuff going on — other decisions to make, people talking to them, etc. We at home are looking constantly at a screen that has the score and a clock on it.
Still, letting the clock run from 2:00 to 1:26 on one play that gained like 3 yards is almost unbelievable.
* That one has been removed, but right now his position (under his photo) is given as “horrible clock manager.”
* Andy Reid is a very good professional football coach but time-management has been an albatross around his neck since his first year.
Reid inherited a talented but dysfunctional team in Kansas City that went 2-14 the year before he took over. That year was mainly known for LB Jovan Belcher murdering his girlfriend in the presence of his own mother and then driving to the Chief’s practice facility and committing suicide in front of team management and coaches.
Reid took over and straightened the organization out. But he still can’t figure out the 2 minute drill!
Reid’s own life is sort of interesting. He is a native of LA like our host Steve Sailer. His mother was a medical doctor and his father an artist employed as a painter with the movie studios.
Like most high-school football players from LA, he desperately wanted to play for a PAC 10 team. He failed to receive a scholarship and opted to go the JUCO route hoping to improve and maybe receiving an offer from his dream school, UCLA.
Reid did well at JUCO but no PAC-10 scholarship was offered. Reid accepted a scholarship from Brigham Young Univ and learned to love the passing game. He also met (or was steered toward) a pretty co-ed and married her and converted to Mormonism.
Reid has 5 or 6 children and 2 sons became pill/heroin junkies while growing-up in the swank Main Line suburbs of Philly. One son eventually died of an overdose.
* Sitting on my couch watching a football game, I’m a wizard at clock management, but that’s largely because my head is empty of all concerns about things like what play to run, much less which linemen should be on the field.
* Yeah, but coordinators and position coaches take care of specifics like that. Andy Reid’s gameday responsibilities don’t include micromanaging OL substitutions, if any are needed. Unless a head coach acts as his own OC or DC (or special teams coach), his main specific responsibility during the game is managing the clock, timeouts, and challenges. (Plus, of course, general strategy; i.e., you get the ball in your own end with 50 seconds left in the first half – do you press to try to get into FG range or just try to get to halftime without having to punt or turn it over? – the head coach, usually, decides the strategy and then it’s the playcaller’s job to decide the specifics of how to achieve the HC’s goal).
* You also don’t have to worry about getting knocked flat by a wayward running back or wide receiver.
* Heard it said problem with unsuccessful football coaches is they watch a lot of plays on tape but don’t really watch football games, nor grasp how the ebb and flow of a football game work and play out. As a Jets fan, seen that play out vs, the Pats at least once and usually twice every season. Reid’s team was down 2 scores most of the 2nd half and he ran an offense that seemed oblivious to the desperation his team’s situation demanded.
* Time management is an issue when the team is on defense too (e.g., when to take timeouts, etc.), so it can’t be solely the offensive coordinator’s job. Picking Ben McAdoo as head coach made sense: the offense has put up good numbers, and Eli has had the best stats of his career with him at OC. The team’s main problem has been a weak defense, including a former top pass rusher who blew off part of his hand.
* As the NFL is becoming more and more stats oriented a la moneyball sabermetrics, there has been talk that a coach can simply hire a “clock management expert”. In other words, NFL coaches would rely upon an expert who, based on analysis/stats/computer models/etc. would make the sole decision of when to call time out, or at least how to manage the clock better during the last few minutes of the game.
And the coaches should be bound to follow the clock management experts advice; he would be speaking for the GM if not for ownership. Take the clock management decisions out of the coaches’ hands and let them concentrate on helping to execute the actual on field plays (of which most coaches don’t even call anymore in this day and age).
This is certainly one aspect of the NFL, namely clock management, where a Bill James could be useful. And let his decision be final, even if that means overruling the coach. After all, time saved = more plays to run to potentially win the game.
* NFL Head Coach is a difficult job in part because of its multi-faceted nature. Reid is good in the CEO role but he is God awful at clock management. He needs help badly. Saturday’s game was a replay of SB XXXIX.
* The Patriots are the better team now that they have their receiving corps back. They deserved to win. And even with the poor clock management, if the last pass has caromed to a Chief instead of to Edelman for the first down, the Chiefs would have had a minute to move down field with good field position. The time management wasn’t AS egregious as the commenters made it out to be.
* Andy Reid’s clock management problems are so bad because they are so basic and so fixable. That shows you that he isn’t a top-tier NFL coach. I’m betting that getting in the last 5 minutes of a close claim Reid tends to freeze up, and people have a difficult time getting a response from him. His amygdala just must be overloaded and he just shuts down. Too much information.
Clock management is a basic skill for a coach, so the fact that Reid sucks at it is so glaring since he’s so good everywhere else. And, as I said, so fixable. Either practice the shit outta 2 minute drills or hire a guy who gets the players hustling and barks a lot in the last 5 minutes of a game. C’mon, this isn’t rocket science here; this is like having a bad kicker or a slow quarterback, the problem can be managed.
It’s quite clear now that Reid just considers football coaching a job and not something he’s passionate about. A passionate coach would be obsessed with fixing this problem and hire someone to train him or work on it. A coach who just considers this a job would either be too stubborn to admit it or not care enough (“hey, I make the second or third round of the playoffs consistently, why worry?”)
It reminds me how Reid never saw the greatest NFL game ever until a reporter asked him to give his thoughts on it. You can bet top-tier coaches like Belichick and Coughlin were watching that game as assistant coaches and taking notes, just for the football nerdiness of it all.
They were mentioning on the broadcast how Reid and Belichick were friends in the offseason. The reporters painted this as two equals respecting each other’s work. I think Belichick treats Reid as his retarded little cousin who occasionally comes up with a good play that Belichick steals and makes better.
* Andy Reid needs to shed at least 70 pounds then his mind will be sharper. His mind is pooping out in the final minutes. I’ll bet he doesn’t make these time management screw-ups when the first half is winding down. He is fresher.
* The time management wasn’t AS egregious as the commenters made it out to be.
Yes, it was, as they took forever to get plays off from the 6:00 mark down. The QB was lackadaisical, and so was the HC & OC. Lots and lots of time wasted while down two scores.
And to some of the others here: What was done to Reid’s Wiki page wasn’t vandalism, it was an attempt to accurately describe the biggest weakness Reid has as a HC. Currently the word “clock” doesn’t appear on Reid’s Wiki page at all, which is an example of history being sanitized for the benefit of those in power. And that’s a worse misrepresentation of the truth than the so-called vandalism.
* How is Alex Smith getting a pass here? I recall McNabb rightfully getting killed for his role in Eagles’ loss to the Patriots — especially from Terrell Owens, who was imploring him in the huddle to pick up the pace.
The Patriots have a huge advantage with Belichick, who understands the clock implications of every play. He also relies on his old prep school roommate, Ernie Adams, as his in-game advisor. Adams is to football what Bill James would to be to baseball, if he’d been an insider, rather than a writer/analyst from day one.
