The New England Patriots had many positive takeaways from the 27-24 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers.
But, the management of timeouts was abnormally bad.
One of the lost timeouts came early in the fourth quarter when Bill Belichick threw a challenge flag, thinking right tackle Storm Norton was holding in the Chargers’ end zone. Belichick believed Norton committed the penalty on Kyle Van Noy, resulting in a safety.
In reality, guard Matt Feiler was flagged for holding against Christian Barmore — but, it wasn’t in the end zone. On a conference call on Monday, Belichick owned up to his mistake.
“I saw the hold on Kyle,” Belichick said, transcribed by NESN. “I thought it happened in the end zone. I think it did happen in the end zone, on Norton. The foul was called on the guard. I didn’t really hear who the foul was on. I saw it on Norton; I thought it was on him, so obviously, that was a mistake that I made. …
“That’s my fault. I blew it.”
Later in the fourth quarter, the Patriots had to use their final timeout because they would’ve had too many players on the field. With a little less than seven minutes remaining in the game, New England had no timeouts left.
“I didn’t think we were clean on the (defensive) substitution,” Belichick continued. “And the offensive timeout, we didn’t get away from the pile and scrum after the play, and honestly there was no chance to get the play in before the 15-second cutoff, so we couldn’t get the play in.”
Fortunately for Belichick, Adrian Phillips’ pick-six sealed the game and those timeouts weren’t necessary.
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