Todd Bowles’ bungling clock management in the playoffs is becoming a yearly tradition.
The Buccaneers coach made some odd choices with his timeouts that did not help his team’s chances in the 23-20 home upset loss to the Commanders in the wild-card round on Sunday night.
Bowles wasted crucial time at the end of the game before calling a pair of timeouts, including one delay due to what he called a “personnel problem.”
He also squandered time in the first half on the Buccaneers’ final drive.
Bowles’ choices didn’t ultimately doom the Buccaneers since they scored a touchdown on that final first-half sequence and Washington could have bled the clock dry on the final drive regardless of timeouts, but Bowles did not put his team in the best position to succeed by letting the clock run.
This sequence came on the heel of last year’s questionable strategy in the Divisional Round when he didn’t use timeouts at the end of a loss to the Lions.
The first delay came after Austin Ekeler caught an 18-yard pass to give the Commanders a first down at the Buccaneers’ 27-yard line on the first play coming out of the two-minute warning.
Logan Hall tackled Ekeler with around 1:51 remaining, but the Buccaneers did not use their first timeout until 1:41 remained.
Bowles seemed to indicate — his answer did not specifically state which play — that his defense had issues lining up after this play, which led to the delay.
“Before the last play, we wanted to call a timeout, wanted to see where they were trying to call a timeout and we had a personnel problem,” Bowles said, “so we called it later than normal.”
Ekeler then ran for eight yards on the next play but Bowles did not call a timeout, instead opting to use one after his defense stuffed Ekeler on third down.
“It’s only a yard for a first down, so we had to let it play out and we had to use on there,” Bowles said.
The Commanders all but locked up the game when Jayden Daniels ran for four yards on the next play to secure a first down, hitting the turf with around 48 seconds remaining.
Bowles did not call his final timeout until 40 seconds remained.
In the first half, Bowles let roughly 13 seconds run off the clock after Mike Evans advanced the Buccaneers to the red zone while trailing 10-3 with less than a minute left in the second quarter.
Evans scored a touchdown later on the drive, but losing that time gave Tampa Bay less time to work with in pursuit of that game-tying score.
“Proud of the way they fought,” Bowles said. “Obviously was disappointing, we don’t want the season to end like this. We don’t want point fingers. We had our chances to win this ball game, obviously it wasn’t good enough.”
