‘Just bad coaching’: Bill Belichick took the blame for his timeout usage against the Raiders
Despite the Patriots win over the Raiders on Sunday, Belichick was critical of himself.
Rarely is Patriots head coach Bill Belichick associated with “bad coaching.” Yet, against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, Belichick says he could have done better.
Appearing on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria” show on Monday, Belichick criticized his decisions in using all three of his second-half timeouts against the Raiders. By the fourth quarter, the Patriots were out of timeouts with 12 minutes remaining.
“Just bad coaching, really,” Belichick said earnestly. “I have to do a better job. Just not good coaching.”
“We had to use our timeouts because there were problems. I got to do a better job. We got to be able to play without using our timeouts.”
“I’ve got to do a better job.”
Bill Belichick on having to burn all 3 time outs before start of the 4th Q.
Full interview: https://t.co/DEgLBRXY4g
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📱 https://t.co/IxRSW0Xg1L#PatriotsMonday @GlennDOrdway @LouMerloni @christianfauria pic.twitter.com/VJXvrSHXsD— Jones & Mego with Arcand (@JonesandMego) September 28, 2020
This isn’t the first time Belichick’s timeout usage has been noticed — and called into question. Against the Seahawks in Week 2, Belichick opted not to call his final timeout when there were 12 seconds left in the game, choosing to let the clock run down and rely on a play designed for quarterback Cam Newton to rush the ball.
The last play didn’t go as planned, as Newton was stuffed by the Seahawks defense. The Patriots lost, 35-30.
Belichick came to his own defense on that call.
“We were able to stop the clock and get the play run that we wanted to run, that was the critical play in the game,” Belichick said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. But I think that’s the position you want to be in, not having to race up to the ball and try to come up with something, especially at the 1-yard line, at the last second. It’s doable, but it’s hard to do.”
Yet, against the Raiders, Belichick felt like both he and the team could have done things better.
“We did some things well in all three phases of the game, it’s always important to play good, complementary football. There were things we didn’t do well, coaching, playing, offense, defense, special teams,” he said. “We’ll keep working on those and trying to continue to improve, all teams are improving now and they’re still finding out about their teams, their players, what they do well and maybe what they need to try to support or build on. Other teams are going to try to, now that there’s three games on film gives opponents a better idea, more of a true evaluation of their opponent and how to game plan and attack them. We’ll see how all of this plays out over the next few weeks, but I think everybody still is trying to improve, figure some things out.”
Come Sunday, the Patriots will take on the defending Super Bowl champs, the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s a challenge that, Belichick said, will require the Patriots to play well — and be coached well.
“Certainly playing Kansas City, they’re pretty good at everything, so that’ll be a big challenge for us and we’ll need to play our best game,” he said. “We all know that, and coach our best game. We’ll just try to have a good week of preparation so we can do that on Sunday.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that the Patriots had four second-half timeouts, not three.
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