Of course what if Simms had said it before 3rd down and 1. The Evans play is now in the past. They took their one shot vs potentially setting up 3 shots to the end zone. All of those 3 plays would be with no timeouts of course. They might still be in better position but I'll still make a point that perhaps can be blown off but I think is relevant.
If each play uses 5 seconds to give Balt the best chance of utilizing those 3 plays the problem is they would be on 2nd down with perhaps 16 or 17 seconds left and 3rd down with 12 seconds left and I think that is a best case scenario. The real risk if if on the second or third down down play assuming the first play didn't work out Flacco gets sacked or he or anyone becomes injured on the play. It can happen. If you want these plays to be meaningful he needs some time and you risk a blitz and of course a blitz helps you also to perhaps find an open man. If someone is injured they would run into the automatic 10 second run off and the game would be over. Perhaps someone else knows but I speculate even a false start penalty with less than 10 seconds left can end the game as NE would elect to take the time off the clock and not the yards. Baltimore must have a TO to avoid this. That is why in spiking the ball they're very careful near the end of the game to set up a game winning FG if they're out of timeouts because you can lose the time anyway and game over with a false start penalty I think.
I also think the blitz leads to a possibility of an intential grounding. I had originally wrote I might take a shot at 3 more plays but I really think one play with one TO left is a better play than facing a blitz and opening up the possibility of a play ending where the clock is still running. Even if Flacco throws it away if that isn't executed correctly I do think it would be intentional grounding if there was a likely sack and I'm not sure but if 10 seconds or less left at that point they can decline the penalty NE and get the run off....and the game would end.
I think by not calling the timeouts NE made the right decision they're increasing their chances of winning the game because they're forcing Balt to have clock management issues. If they had called a timeout you probably would get Rice running the ball and more time and probably at least one or more opportunities to win the game with a TD against them. NE is concerned about stopping the TD much more than a plan if the TD is scored against them. They need to do everything to minimize that they will be scored upon by a TD and that includes not calling timeouts.
