When you have 13 seconds, the concern is not only your ability to stop the clock after a play, it’s the time to run a play itself. Every 10 yards you have to run is at minimum another second, and usually more like 2-4 seconds if you are making cuts or fighting through blocks and tackles.
Precisely. The timeouts are nice in that you’re not forced to throw and/or run to the outside to get out of bounds every play, or waste downs by spiking the ball to stop the clock. But they don’t put time on the clock for you, and plays need time. At most they just give you more options.
Even with a long bomb from a cannon arm, in an attempt to get maximum yardage in the shortest possible time, it takes time for your receivers to get into place and get open to make a throw possible. A play like that could even take most of those 13 seconds if you’re dealing with a really good secondary and your QB is forced to scramble until a play opens up. It’s pretty tough which is why what the Chiefs did is so remarkable.
They had 13 seconds. They ran two plays and used a timeout after each play. When do you think they would have used another timeout?
KC gained 44 yards in the two plays from scrimmage that they ran after the kickoff.
If they got the ball, say, with 8 seconds left, they could have run one play before a possible FG attempt. So they would have needed probably 40 yards in that play, in less than 8 seconds, to have a chance. The chances of that happening are really, really low.
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