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It can be often overlooked but clock and game management are a huge part of winning football.
And never was there a better example than Sunday’s NFL game between the New York Jets and Cleveland.
With 2:02 to play in the game, the Brown had a 24-17 lead and the ball 1st-and-10 at the Jets’ 12-yard line. New York was out of timeouts.
Cleveland handed the ball off to Nick Chubb who scored on a 12-yard TD run.
Here’s the problem: Had Chubb slid down short of the goal line, Cleveland could have run out the clock and secured the win.
Nick Chubb decided to run this in for a TD rather than slide down.
The Jets came back to win 31-30.
(via @Browns)pic.twitter.com/5LYhhE9yZz
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) September 18, 2022
Instead, they scored what looked like a meaningless touchdown at the time.
It proved to be anything but, however. Cade York subsequently missed the ensuing PAT and the Jets miraculously scored 2 touchdowns in the final 1:55 to pull off a most unlikely 31-30 win.
It was an otherwise great day for Chubb, the former standout at Georgia. He rushed 17 times for 87 yards and 3 touchdowns in the game.
But had it been 2 scores instead, his team wins.
The morale of the story: clock management matters.
"Chris Wallace covers college football for Saturday Down South. He has covered college athletics for multiple newspapers and also worked previously for Rivals.com and GolfChannel.com."
