Indy Outscores Miami's Football IQ, 27-23

GM,

If we fired every coach who made terrible late-game decisions and released every quarterback who didn't understand clock management, we would only have the New England Patriots, Peyton Manning, and a few high school teams left to watch. I had no idea that my team would be such an offender, though. Down 27-23 last night, the Miami Dolphins got the ball with 3:18 left on the clock, and they ran out of time at the Indianapolis 30!!! They ran out of time! Three minutes, 18 seconds, two timeouts, and one two-minute warning... and Tony Sparano called plays like it was Miami's lead to protect. Even the South Florida crowd began booing after the first play, when Ronnie Brown ran for a yard and Chad Pennington let the play clock run down all the way before taking a timeout. Ronnie ran it again the next play, and the Dolphins failed to snap it again before the two-minute warning. Mike Tirico, who only gives analysis when it is blatantly obvious, said, "This is the slowest two-minute offense I've ever seen."

I was so flabbergasted by this display of incompetence that I did a little research. Turns out there were 70 touchdown drives in the NFL this week. The average time for a touchdown-scoring drive was 3:03. That was the average. That was the (bleeping) average! With three clock stoppages and 15 more seconds than the average, Miami ran out of time!!! Sparano, you deserve to be fired, but the next guy would do the same thing. Chad, I thought you knew better.

What pains me even more is that coaches rarely take any flack for terrible decisions. The reason is because the sports media are mostly the guys who got picked last for dodgeball and yearn to be athletes themselves. When a coach makes a joke at the expense of a reporter, the other reporters usually laugh with the coach. Rubbish! The media need to be my voice in press conferences; I want some scrutiny.

"Coach, why'd you punt from the opponent's 35-yard line on 4th-and-2 with 1:29 left when you were down three?"

"Coach, why'd you save that last timeout for offense after you had stopped them on third down? That cost you 40 seconds!"

"Coach (Dirk) Koetter (of the 2006 Arizona State team), why'd you punt the ball to USC on fourth down when you were down a touchdown and all the Trojans had to do was take three knees to run out the clock?"

These guys get paid a lot of money to do what they do. I can tolerate losing out to other guys who get paid a lot. I refuse to tolerate losing out to stupidity. Miami found a way to get beaten by the clock.

-JW

JW,

If only for comedy's sake, I'd have paid good money to hear Bill Parcells' fuming in last night's press box. He already had every sports columnist in America complaining that last season's turnaround was a fluky-schedule fraud. Once Tony Sparano morphed into this season's Andy Reid (minus the occassional winning), all bets were off. What's a Tuna to do?

Joking aside, I understand Sparano's thinking completely. Perhaps even more than he wanted the win, he wanted to keep the ball out the absurdly clutch-in-the-regular-season hands of Peyton Manning. Sparano knew that he had one chance to win that game: scoring a touchdown as the game clock wound down to zero. Otherwise, Manning was going to march down the field unhindered. His previous touchdown drive, let's not forget, took all of 32 seconds.

If last night's game taught us anything, it was a reinforcement of the following lesson: Cheering against Manning in the regular season is one of the most miserable experiences a fan can have. Take a look at his stats! 8 of 16 in quarters one through three; 6 of 7 in quarter four. Like Roethlisberger, Manning lulls you into thinking he stinks, only to rip your heart out the minute you start believing in an upset. Savvy fans take advantage of this fact, loading up on the Colts whenever they're giving three or fewer. Slightly less savvy fans (like me) make the mistake of parlaying the Colts with things like "yes" on "Will anyone miss the NBA's refs?". A sucker bet if ever there was one.

If it's any consolation, Miami's players will have the option come January of changing the channel when Peyton Manning loses in the first round of the playofffs. I think we both know they'll be watching from home.

-GM