A great piece on the hidden game within the game
“Everybody says they do it, but only a few coaches do it right,” said ESPN’s Dilfer. “Fisher does it right, so does Bill Belichick. [Mike] Holmgren did and I’m told [Pittsburgh’s Mike] Tomlin does it. Those guys are saying, ‘We have 52 seconds with two timeouts — how does the offense handle this? There’s 3:06 on the clock and the opponent has all three timeouts and the two-minute warning — how do we react on defense?’
“There are so many variables, but everyone thinks they know how it should go. It’s funny being around here [ESPN]. Everyone watches the games and says, ‘Oh, that was so stupid. I would have done it better.'”
People who live with knowledgeable football fans know the drill; when the game comes down to crunch time, at the moment of critical mass, the deeply focused fan puts his fingers to his palm in the sign of a “T.” When his timeout call beats the head coach to the punch, even by a few seconds, invariably, there is a look of triumph.
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