In a weekend full of emotion, leave it to Joe Gibbs to have a brain fart. The Redskins lost to the Bills 17-16 on Sunday. I’m not saying that the loss is his fault — it certainly isn’t — but he made a glaring mistake at the end of the game.
Gibbs’ decision to call not one timeout to ice Bills kicker Rian Lindell from 51 yards out, but two, was enough to make a difference. Lindell knocked down a 36 yarder to win it for the Bills 17-16. Though you would expect a man with oh, I dunno, say 16 years of head coaching experience to be familiar with the league’s rule book, you could be wrong.
Gibbs asked the official nearest to him whether he could call a second timeout.
“I felt like he said, ‘Yes,’ ” Gibbs said. “He said, ‘When do you want to call it?’ But I’m not laying it on him. I’m the guy, in all likelihood, that made a decision that very, very easily cost us the game. I told the team that. I want to tell everybody that. I should know the rule. I can’t blame that on somebody else.”
Shoot, Joe Gibbs can call five timeouts if he wants to, but he’ll still get penalized. I just don’t get how a coach can be so unprepared. Sure, things happen in the heat of the moment, but come on, you don’t kick an extra point when you’re down two at the end of the game, right? I would think this is just as easy of a decision. Joe Gibbs, shame on you, even Chris Webber would be disappointed.
