Clay Alter

Inside the disaster sequence by the Jets at the end of regulation: Jets could have and should have called timeout at 1:01 left and the Packers facing 4th and 5 at the +45. By doing so, the Jets force the Packers to make a decision with 1:01 left, which almost certainly would have been to punt. The average starting field position after a punt from that field position is roughly the 12 yard line. A touchback occurs ~16% of the time which would put you at the 20. For simplicity, assume the Jets have the ball from their own 12 with 51 seconds left and a timeout. One key point here is the Packers only had 2 timeouts remaining, which makes a big difference. The Jets could have run the ball on 1st down and seen what they got. If it went nowhere, they would have the ability to take the clock to 0:00 if needed because the Packers could only stop the clock twice. By not calling timeout, the Jets allowed the Packers to run the clock all the way down to 21 seconds before a delay of game. The clock decay helps one team or the other here, and in this case it clearly helps the Packers. Now comes the next clear mistake by the Jets. Once the delay of game occurred, the Jets could have and should have stopped the clock. By not electing to do so, Green Bay was able to run the clock down to 2 seconds to get a free chance at a Hail Mary. The Jets needed to stop the clock at 21 seconds to force the punt and then take it to overtime. Green Bay would not have been able to run that Hail Mary with 21 seconds. The situation was so chaotic I actually think the Packers missed an opportunity here too. Packers could have called timeout with ~8-9 seconds, tried to get the first down on 4th and 10, and if so called timeout and attempted a game winning field goal. The Packers have had a great long yardage pass offense with Love. If they failed, the Packers would have to defend one play from the ~50. Another Packers option is Trey Smack attempting a ~68 yard field goal with 2 seconds left. For some teams that would have clearly been the best option. Ultimately, this game management by the Jets was objectively incorrect in both of these instances, and the fact it sounds like they did not even talk about it on the headset is beyond alarming.