IMO, the time-management considerations in soccer work pretty differently from the NFL.
Bolding mine.
In the last five minutes of the game, any and every flag stops the game clock, and it doesn’t start again until the ball is snapped. This is true whether or not the penalty is accepted.
From page 12 of the NFL rule book:
If the game clock is stopped before or after a down for a foul by either team, following enforcement or declination of a penalty, the game clock will start as if the foul had not occurred, except that the clock will start on the snap if:
(1) the foul occurs after the two-minute warning of the first half;
(2) the foul occurs inside the last five minutes of the second half;
That’s Section 3, Article 2, subheading (e) in the rule book.
That’s true, I forgot about that quirk.
Mike Vrabel used that in a game once.
With the Titans trailing 30-29 and Houston having the ball on second-and-1 with 3:28 to play, Vrabel sent safety Josh Kalu onto the field, making him the 12th Titans defender.
By giving the Texans the first down on a penalty, Vrabel had stopped the clock without calling timeout. If the Texans had run the ball, there’s a good chance they would have picked up the first down anyway, but the clock would have kept running. Vrabel saved about 40 seconds with the penalty.
I posed this question in the conference championship thread: Could the Texans have simply declined this penalty, keeping it 2nd and 1? Yes, the clock would still be stopped, but they would have short yardage and 2 downs to convert, thus getting back those 40 seconds and perhaps more time.
In the last minute of each half, a penalty that stops a running clock results in an option for a ten second runoff for the team accepting the penalty.
If you want Crazy Football, you’ve got to watch CFL. NFL has nothing on us. Most of you “crazy” stuff happens because someone screws up. Ours is by design.
I actually saw this one live:
The NFL needs to look into adding some elements from the CFL. That’s entertainment!
There’s been a lot of talk about defensive time outs but little about offensive time outs
As mentioned above a team needing a field goal to win will run the clock down to 0:03 and call time out to stop the clock but there is also the case where on the penultimate play the team needs a lot of yards to get into field goal position and having a time out lets the team use the whole field so if they get the yards in the middle of the field they can call time out so that the clock does not expire as they run up to the line of scrimmage for the kick.
And let’s not forget Super Bowl XLIX. Had Pete Carroll not had to burn a timeout early in the 2nd half, they could have run Marshawn Lynch at the goal line at the end of the game and if he didn’t make it stop the clock for one last play. As it was … well let’s not rehash that.
I love to rehash that. 
Belichick didn’t call a time out there, forcing Seattle to act quickly and ended up shooting themselves in the foot.
There’s also the famous example of Super Bowl 32, where the game was tied with just under 2 minutes left, and Green Bay intentionally allowed Denver to score, in order to preserve themselves time to try to come back.
As for the general focus on discussing timeouts and clock management, I think part of it is that it’s a relatively straightforward and clear part of game strategy to discuss. Looking at the SF-Detroit game, there were dozens of coaching decisions that affected the outcome, having to do with game planning, play calling, defensive schemes, and so on. Most people (myself included) aren’t really equipped to discuss most of that, but we can understand the math that burning the timeout on offense means SF will run out the clock if they get the ball.
Also Superbowl 46 – the second Giants win over the Patriots – the Patriots let Ahmad Bradshaw score to give themselves time for a comeback. They were down by two, meaning the Giants could kill the entire clock and kick a game-winning field goal from the goal line as time expired.
Interestingly, the Giants coaches hadn’t told the offense not to score. It didn’t come up in the huddle. The only reason Bradshaw made an attempt not to score was because Eli shouted “Don’t score!” as he handed the ball off to him.
It’s probably fair to call this the most undignified game-winning touchdown in Superbowl history:
I just want to say as a Giants fan the so called “miracle in the meadowlands” was, and still may be, simply referred to as “the fumble”.
I’m not a Giants fan so sorry but no.