Why did the Miami Dolphins call timeouts on the last drive of the game?

Written by Matthew Cannata | Twitter: @PhinManiacs
The biggest criticism coming out of yesterday’s game was the fact that Joe Philbin called two timeouts in the final drive and gave the Packers an opportunity to re-group and get themselves back together.

The first one was called when the Packers had a fourth down after being sacked and almost losing a fumble. The crowd was going crazy and the Packers were on the ropes. Yet, Philbin called the timeout. The second one, and this is one that I don’t have an issue with, is the one before the final play of the game before Aaron Rodgers threw the game-winning touchdown pass. The Packers came out in their formation and Philbin called a timeout so they were able to see what the team was thinking.

“We kind of call that ‘Kodaking’. What we do is we let the offense line up in a specific formation and then we want to call time-out. One time we called it on fourth down where, again, that was something we talked about. We’ve used it before in the past and I’m most concerned that our team knows what they’re going to do and how we’re going to execute the call. Again, you have to give Green Bay credit. They made plays. They made the play on fourth-and-ten and they made the play at the end zone to win the game.”

“They made plays in the fourth quarter. Give them credit. But again, that’s something wasn’t just – it’s something we talk about all the time, we’ve used, again, we could argue if it was wise to do it, but that was a decision that I knew we were going to do. Wait for them to line up and then call.”

The fact that the Packers looked to be struggling to gather themselves after being sacked is probably the biggest reason why most are upset this morning. However, Philbin said that he’s sticking to his philosophy.

“What I said was, I wanted to make sure our team knows what to do. And that’s what we did.”

This will be second guessed for a long time and I feel the mood would be different if the Packers beat the Dolphins on that fourth down without Philbin calling a timeout. Instead, we’ll have to play the hypothetical game of “what if” until this loss goes away.

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