Todd Bowles speaking to reporters
Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles is getting destroyed online after explaining why he chose not to use a timeout during the dying moments of Sunday’s loss vs. the Detroit Lions.

The Bucs had an opportunity to go for a win with a two-minute drill late on but Baker Mayfield threw a pick to Derrick Barnes on the second play of the drive that saw the ball moved back deep into their own territory.

 

Detroit went into victory formation to seal the win, with Jared Goff taking a knee at around 30 seconds. Bowles could have taken a timeout that would have stopped the clock and forced the Lions to go for a field goal, but he opted not to.

“They already had the field goal lined up,” he explained to reporters. “There would’ve been around 12 seconds left on the clock at the end of the ballgame. We weren’t going to come back from that.”

Fans were having none of it. Check some of their reactions out below:

 


While Bowles could be applauded for trying not to waste anyone’s time and delaying an inevitable loss, he couldn’t have known that the Lions would convert and should have at least taken the shot with the season on the line.

It’s not like there was anything more to lose.