Jets' Todd Bowles learning to manage the 'what if' scenarios of coaching

The impact of an NFL head coach takes many forms, all of which ultimately determine his effectiveness and long-term viability. An ability to motivate. A keen grasp of the X's and O's. How he performs during the crises that inevitably occur during any season.

And there are the critical issues of clock management, two-point conversions and fourth-down decisions. It's called situational football, and it often means the difference between winning and losing.

In a complicated sport in which there are almost unlimited permutations for even the simplest plays, these are decision-making areas in which even the most successful coaches stumble. For a first-year head coach, it can be an especially difficult learning curve, as the Jets' Todd Bowles is finding out.

Bowles generally has done a fine job in steering the Jets to a 5-4 record -- that's one more victory than all of last season -- and keeping his team in contention for an AFC wild-card spot. But his clock management and late-game strategic decisions have come under scrutiny in recent weeks, particularly in close losses to AFC East rivals New England and Buffalo.

In a 30-23 loss to New England, for instance, Bowles preserved all of his timeouts during the Patriots' winning drive late in the fourth quarter, rather than trying to stop the clock to give his team a better chance at winning. With the Jets trailing 23-20, the Patriots scored a touchdown with 1:13 left, building a 10-point lead and thereby making it virtually impossible for the Jets to get two scores.

In a 22-17 loss to the Bills in a Thursday night game in Week 10, Bowles was second-guessed when he opted not to attempt a two-point conversion late in the third quarter, and later for his decision to go for it on fourth down rather than attempt a field goal. Both decisions proved critical.

Bowles decided not to go for two after the Jets cut the Buffalo lead to 22-9. Teams often get in a situation in which they have to chase that missing point the rest of the game if the two-point play fails, and that certainly factored into Bowles' thinking.

But a decision to go for it on fourth-and-2 from the Bills 20 early in the fourth quarter loomed large. Rather than have Randy Bullock attempt a 38-yard field goal that would have cut the lead to 22-13, the Jets failed to convert on fourth down. Had they made the field goal, their subsequent touchdown would have pulled them to within 22-20 with 7:23 remaining.

That also would have given the Jets a chance to win with a late field goal. Instead, they were down 22-17 when punter Colton Schmidt mishandled a snap and was tackled at the Bills' 13. The Jets couldn't get into the end zone on their next three plays, and on fourth-and-4 from the 7, Ryan Fitzpatrick's pass to seldom-used tight end Kellen Davis fell incomplete.

It's a tricky business, and Bowles knows it. Even the most experienced coaches struggle with similar decisions; Giants coach Tom Coughlin, for instance, has been second-guessed in a handful of games this season, including the season opener against Dallas, although Eli Manning was as much to blame for poor clock management in that one. Coughlin also was questioned about whether he should have run more time off the clock in last Sunday's 27-26 loss to the Patriots. The Giants scored the go-ahead field goal with 1:47 remaining in the fourth quarter, thus leaving time for Tom Brady to drive for the winning field goal. That came with one second remaining, as Stephen Gostkowski made a 54-yarder.

"You can watch all of the film and go over all the scenarios you want to go over, but you have to have a feel for your team,'' said Bowles, who faces another critical AFC game against the Texans in Houston today. "When you're in-game, it has to be more than that. You can't just go over the clock and do scenarios that other people would do because they have different types of teams.''

Bowles acknowledges the challenges of managing the what-if scenarios, although he isn't particularly daunted by them.

"It's just part of the game,'' he said. "I wouldn't say it's any tougher than anything else.''

Like all coaches, Bowles goes over various situations that might arise in a game during practice. But what often separates the good coaches from the great ones is how well they translate those simulated plays to the games.

Bill Belichick is one of the best situational coaches in NFL history, in part because he drills his players in reviewing different situations during the course of the week. He'll spend hours lining his team up and barking out an assortment of instructions, based on specific down-and-distance plays that occur at various points in a game.

Bowles takes a similar approach in his own practices.

"We have situations within every period that we go over certain things within that period, be it red zone, third down or team run,'' he said. "You have to practice different ones all the time. We practice different ones based on where we are at on the field, whether it's backed up, whether it's red zone, or midfield, or two-minute, or third-and-whatever and the clock's running down. We try to touch them all. You don't emphasize all of them every day, because there are so many. But we try different ones all the time.''

Texans coach Bill O'Brien, who worked on Belichick's staff in New England, also is a stickler for situational football. He even has a full-time assistant, former Hofstra assistant head coach/defensive coordinator Jim Bernhardt, to assist with game and clock management scenarios.

"Jimmy Bernhardt is a guy that coached with me in college [Penn State], been with me for a long time,'' O'Brien said. "He and I work it out. To me, the way you really work at clock management is to put yourself in different scenarios every single day, whether it's in practice or in a meeting room, and then be able to translate those scenarios to your players because your players are the ones that have to react at a moment's notice and understand the situation.

"There's a million different things that come up. When I was in New England, we used to practice it every day. We do the same thing here. Nobody's got the market cornered on clock management. It's just something new every game and every practice, and you've got to keep working on it.''Bowles and O'Brien understand that in a league in which close games are the norm -- 76 games this year have been decided by seven or fewer points, the most in NFL history through Week 10 -- critical decisions could be the difference between winning and losing. And they'll both be as prepared as possible for this game.

But as both men have experienced firsthand, no coach is perfect. They understand and accept that the tough calls always will be a part of the game -- along with the second-guessing that goes along with it.

By Bob Glauber

Special to NewsdayBobGlauber

Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”