I think Marvin's approach to timeouts is misunderstood by most

[Benton]

Quote:Lance McAlister asked the reasonable question, "Coach, is it reasonable then for fans to wonder how a quarterback in his eighth year who is the face of the franchise making $100 million, doesn't call timeouts?"

"Because he doesn't need to worry about that," replied Lewis. "He needs to go on to the next play because he's directing guys to get lined up. And for him to have to worry about 'do I need to call a timeout or not' he's not looking at the entire picture of that whole situation. There's a lot more into it than that and that's the way we've always practiced it and that's the way we go about it and frankly, that's the way every team in the NFL goes about it."

The question before, Lance asked if the coaches have always been the ones that called timeouts. "That's always been the case, yea," said Lewis. "Coaches can call timeouts, so it's much easier for him not to worry about that. We'll give him direction of, as we told him as we went in, anything in bounds we want to clock it so we can maintain the timeout and the opportunity to get the next play off."

Dave Lapham followed up the questions about timeouts about the fact that there was only one left. "When you talk about timeouts," Lapham said, "I know that you probably wish that there were others that you could of had at the end of the football game and for various reasons they weren't available to you. That had to be frustration."

"Well, they weren't available and that's part of it, Dave," said Lewis. "They were used at other points in the game to get other things done and straightened out. That's part of the game."

http://www.cincyjungle.com/2010/12/7/1861554/marvin-lewis-carson-palmer-doesnt-need-to-worry-about-calling-time

2010 article, but I think a lot of it stands true.

'I don't tell my QBs to call timeouts because they're busy telling everyone what to do, and I don't call the timeout because those all or nothing plays are INTENSE.' That's what I get out of the first bold. He didn't want his QB to worry about it because he's busy arranging guys... who should know where to stand when the play is called.

That's just not good prep. If your QB has to arrange his players because they're not prepared, then the coaches need to be calling the timeouts.

That's kind of emphasized again with the second bolded part. 'We burnt through our time outs because we didn't know what was going on.'

Through most of Marvin's years we don't adjust well on the field... we take a time out. We've also had a problem with subbing guys in and out or what appears to be miscommunication on the playcall. That's pretty basic stuff. I'd rather the team spent more time on that before the game and could stop the clock to stretch out 2 minute drives or to stall the other team, instead of trying to figure out if there's an extra guy on the field or because we lined up with the TE at FB and he was supposed to be set at receiver.