Eight seconds. That’s all Nick Sirianni needed to get through to come out of London with a win. Brian Schottenheimer needed to let just seven seconds pass to get the Cowboys to overtime in Brazil. Todd Monken had to stop the Steelers for ten seconds to come out on top.

At first, those sound like three versions of the same problem. They weren’t. Dallas kicked into the end zone and lost. Philadelphia made Jacksonville return the ball and lost. Cleveland kicked into the end zone and gave Pittsburgh a chance they didn’t need to give, and won anyway.

So what’s the lesson? If you think coaches should always kick short, the Eagles would like a word. If you think they should always take the touchback, ask the Cowboys and Browns how they feel.

That’s what makes these decisions so maddening. There’s no secret playbook involved. The rules are public. The game clock is right there on every television. Analysts can walk through the tradeoffs while the teams are still lining up. Fans have access to fourth-down calculators and win-probability charts that would’ve looked like proprietary team equipment not that long ago.

We can see the danger before the ball is even kicked. Somehow, the people paid to prepare for it still get caught off guard.

The Public Has The Playbook Now

There was a time when a head coach could punt on fourth-and-short, say he trusted his defense, and move on. Now a fan can check a public fourth-down model before the punt team reaches the field. The model considers the chance of converting, the value of the resulting field position, and what happens if the attempt fails. It can compare that with a punt or field goal.

That doesn’t make every close recommendation an iron law. We see it all the time when a backup quarterback gets in the game. Unless your model can calculate the percentages using only other backup quarterbacks, I just don't want to hear the stats about what Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Joe Burrow can do when it's Tyson Bagent or Athan Kaliakmanis running the offense.

But those limitations don’t save a team that hasn’t thought through an obvious clock situation. A model can be imperfect, and a coach can still be flatly unprepared.

Ryan Paganetti's a good example of how much expertise has moved into public view. He worked on strategy and game management with the Eagles, Jaguars, and Raiders. He's said the 2025 Raiders went for it in 12 of 16 situations where the model showed a win-probability gain of more than one percentage point. That was a 75% decision rate, up from 35.5% across the previous two seasons. The Raiders didn’t become a great team. They did get considerably better at this particular job.

Now Paganetti walks people through these decisions on X as games happen. When Philadelphia let Lemon go out of bounds on Sunday, he immediately called it out before Jacksonville had even won. It wasn’t an analyst watching a loss, then inventing a reason the coach was wrong.

The public conversation is smarter because people like him show their work. It’s also less forgiving. Once an error can be explained while the play clock is running, “we’ll have to look at the tape” stops sounding like much of an answer from coaches.

Ten Seconds Left In A Field Goal Game. Where Do You Kick?

The new kickoff rule gives this question a little more bite. If a kick makes it to the end zone without touching the landing zone, it's a touchback at their 35, and no time comes off the clock. But if it touches the landing zone first and then gets downed in the end zone, the ball comes out to the 20. Or you can force a return, burn some time, and — if your coverage team can do their job — still leave the offense short of the 35.

So yeah, there’s a pretty good argument for making the other team return it. A lot of the time, that’s the right call. But it also gives a dangerous returner a running start, so it's not a no-brainer. Really, it’s a choice between different ways to get burned. The details decide which risk is worth taking.

The Touchback Tradeoff

Start with Dallas. Brandon Aubrey tied the Ravens at 31 with a field goal that left seven seconds on the clock. Baltimore still had a timeout. Schottenheimer chose to kick through the end zone, giving Lamar Jackson the ball at his own 35 with all seven seconds. Jackson hit Zay Flowers for 27 yards and they called a timeout with one second left. Tyler Loop drilled a 56-yard field goal. Baltimore won 34-31.

Schottenheimer said Dallas wanted Baltimore to throw something short and play for overtime. The problem was that they thought they only had to defend the endzone. With a timeout, Flowers didn’t have to get out of bounds. Starting at the 35 had already done a lot of the work. Ravens coach Jesse Minter said afterward that the touchback rule was a big part of their thinking. From there, he figured they needed about 18 yards to give Loop a real shot.

Cleveland got the same warning four days later. Andre Szmyt’s 56-yard field goal put the Browns up 27-24 with ten seconds left. They kicked through the end zone too. Pittsburgh took over at the 35 with a timeout still in their pocket. In theory, that was enough time for a completion and a tying attempt by Chris Boswell.

For some inexplicable reason, Aaron Rodgers went deep on the first snap instead, and Grant Delpit intercepted him. Deshaun Watson knelt with one second left. Cleveland won.

But they probably didn't deserve to. If you watch that play back, Rodgers just missed Metcalf wide open at about the 35-40 yard line. If he had gotten it to DK there, they'd have had enough time to call a timeout and given Boswell a very reasonable 52-58 yard shot at sending the game to overtime.

The Timeout Column Changes the Decision

Then came the Eagles, and the timeout column changed everything.

Philadelphia took the lead over Jacksonville 17-16 with eight seconds left. The Jaguars had no timeouts. If Jake Elliott had kicked it through the end zone, Trevor Lawrence would’ve started at the 35, but Jacksonville would’ve needed a big gain that also stopped the clock. A completion over the middle could’ve picked up enough yards, but would've ended the game.

Sirianni chose to put the kick in play. Ameer Abdullah brought it back 53 yards to the Eagles’ 39. Seven seconds came off the clock, but Jacksonville didn’t need to run a play. Cam Little hit the 57-yard winner as time ran out.

The details made that decision even tougher to defend. Jacksonville had returned the opening kickoff 90 yards for what looked like a touchdown before penalties wiped it out. Philadelphia had already lost Jeremiah Trotter Jr., a key coverage player, to an ejection on that play. Little had also made an NFL-record 68-yarder in 2025, so the Eagles couldn’t just assume Jacksonville needed to get the ball all the way to the 30.

A touchback wouldn’t have guaranteed a win. Lawrence could’ve found the sideline — especially with the way Parker Washington was dicing up that defense. A penalty could’ve changed everything. But the lesson from Dallas wasn't never kick deep. The Ravens had a timeout. Jacksonville didn't.

That’s the answer to the ten-second question: count the opponent’s timeouts, know the kicker’s range, know your coverage group.

Philadelphia’s Kickoff Wasn’t Their First Mistake

The Eagles had a better way to avoid that decision altogether.

With 25 seconds left, they had first-and-10 at Jacksonville’s 34. The Jaguars had one timeout, and Jake Elliott was already well within realistic field-goal range. Philadelphia needed to protect the ball, make Jacksonville burn that timeout, and set things up so the kick would be the last meaningful play of the game.

Instead, Jalen Hurts threw incomplete on first down. On second down, he hit Makai Lemon for seven yards, but Lemon was pushed out of bounds. The clock stopped at 17 seconds. Dameon Pierce then lost three yards on a run, Jacksonville used their last timeout with 12 seconds left, and Elliott’s 48-yard field goal left eight seconds on the clock.

That's on the offensive coordinator. It has to be.

The only goal of the possession once you get into field goal range is to make sure the Jags use that timeout before the kick. A run on first down could’ve forced Jacksonville to use it. Another run after that, with Philadelphia’s timeout in their pocket and the kicking unit ready to go, could’ve left Elliott trying the winner as regulation expired.

Paganetti’s immediate reaction to Lemon going out of bounds was that Philadelphia had opened “a way to lose.” Jacksonville walked through it.

Sirianni took responsibility after the game, saying:

I cost us that game.

He later said he regretted the kickoff choice. Owning it is fair. But the bigger problem was letting it even get to a kickoff in the first place.

All stats courtesy of Fantasy Points Data.

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