Clock mismanagement

An exciting week of NFL games might have been even more thrilling if at least two head coaches had made better use of their timeouts.

Of course, that's no surprise. For intelligent guys who work such long hours planning for every possible scenario, it's always amazing to see how routinely coaches fumble and bumble their way through clock management every week.

Embattled Raiders coach Lane Kiffin, who's 5-14 and reportedly close to being fired, showed again just how unprepared he is as an NFL head coach when he sat on two timeouts while letting the host Bills beat the Raiders 24-23 with a 38-yard field goal as time expired.

Meanwhile, in the Meadowlands, the Bengals could have pulled off an upset greater than Miami over New England had Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis not been so conservative at the end of regulation. Lewis sat on a timeout, played for the tying field goal without even attempting one pass into the end zone. He got the tie and then lost to the Giants 26-23 in overtime anyway.

"We only had one timeout left," Lewis said in defending his decision. "If we used it there, you can't kick the field goal."

But the lowly Bengals trailed the defending Super Bowl champs by three points and had second-and-10 at the Giants 23-yard line with 35 seconds left! Go for the END ZONE, Marvin.

Lewis has the veteran quarterback (Carson Palmer) who knows to be careful with the ball. And he has the receivers such as Chad Ocho Whatever to make a play in the end zone.

Shouldn't the Bengals have been more aggressive when they have a chance to pull off the upset of the season?

Meanwhile, no one is quite sure what Kiffin was thinking when he simply let the Bills work the clock down to zero as Rian Lindell booted the game-winner. Maybe Lane was still in shock from Buffalo scoring 17 points in the final eight minutes. Or maybe he actually wants to be freed, er, fired by Raiders owner Al Davis.

When Davis does pull the chain on Kiffin, our guy Lane becomes an even greater sympathetic figure. He's the good-looking young kid getting mistreated by a kooky old boss. But the bottom line is Kiffin was a disastrous hire that came about because no one with the credentials to actually be an NFL head coach would or will take the job as long as Davis is in charge.

No offense to Lane, but his tremendous lack of head coaching experience caused him to finish among the also-rans for the Gophers head coaching job, for gosh sakes.

Yeah, yeah, Davis probably hasn't given Kiffin enough good players to win with. But Kiffin has done little to direct or motivate the ones who are there. If you disagree, watch the Denver game again.

The Bills had first-and-10 at the Raiders 39-yard line at the two-minute warning. They had second-and-3 at the Oakland 32 with 1:17 left.

Tick, tick, tick ...

The Bills had first-and-10 at the Oakland 24 with 1:11 left.

Tick, tick, tick. Um, Lane? Hello. You know Lindell is going to make it. At least give yourself some time to answer with a field goal of your own.

Nope. Forty-three seconds later, the Bills ran their last play from scrimmage. And 25 seconds after that, Lindell kicked the game-winner. Ironically, Kiffin tried to call a timeout to ice Lindell at the last second, but was too late.