Last night, the Bucs called their final timeout when the Bills got a 1st down with 2:12 remaining in the 4th quarter. This timeout saved them 12 seconds as the clock would’ve run to the 2 minute warning.
The Bills proceeded to run the ball on 1st, (brought them to 2 min warning); 2nd (brought them to 1:15) 3rd down bringing the clock down to about 40 seconds for the Bucs.
Alternatively, if the Bucs let the clock run from 2:15 (when the Bills got a 1st down) to the 2 minute warning, and THEN called a timeout on 2nd down, the clock would be 1:55 and 3rd down. Then, they run a play on 3rd down that milks the clock to 1:10… this would give the Bucs an additional 20-30 seconds.
TLDR: why call a timeout to save 12 seconds, when you can save 40 seconds?
I mean the real question, in this case, was why weren’t they calling timeouts earlier when they were bleeding time during their last scoring drive.