Coaches Add That Sumthin'....or Don't

It was Monday afternoon. I was trying to figure out whether Tom Brady, that marvel of a Patriots quarterback, would score 25 or more fantasy points that night. In looking at the past games, I determined that Brady had missed the "25" mark only once, that performance just last week against the Philadelphia Eagles. The following is an excerpt from my actual league posting:

hey ramsy, just fyi, and as you still have the BAL DEF on your roster, you might already know this and are just being coy, (yeah, that's right, coy), the Ravens have everybody back on D tonight except for Trevor Pryce, their DE.

McAllister, Rolle, Ed Reed, Landry are all in line.

If the Ravens play conservatively on offense and don't fumble, and play like madmen on Def like the Eagles did, it could even get interesting.

It surely did prove to be interesting, the game turning, I thought, on Billick's time-out.

Why is it always the Belichicks who have their full complement of timeouts at the end of the game? And it’s always the Billicks who call timeout for any reason whatsoever. I grow weary of these high-profile coaches who lose games for their teams. Joe Gibbs, Mike Shanahan, Mike Martz, Brian Schottenheimer of the Jets to name just a few.

But none can match KC’s Herm Edwards. In the Oakland game, with Kansas City trailing 20-17 and in field goal position, Edwards called a timeout to discuss what to do on fourth down. Then he challenged the fourth-down spot. The ruling on the field prevailed and the Chiefs lost two timeouts and a game-tying field goal.

Of course, some decisions are very tough. The really good coaches, though, seem to transcend the moment. With confidence in their players, with a total awareness of the situation and the opponent, they prevail; they live to fight another day.