Colts coach Jim Caldwell said Sunday he doesn't regret calling a late timeout that actually might have helped the New York Jets' winning drive in the previous night's AFC wild-card playoff game, according to *The Indianapolis Star*.
Caldwell called the timeout when New York, trailing by two points, had the ball at the Indianapolis 32-yard line with 29 seconds remaining. Television camera caught Colts quarterback Peyton Manning looking around, puzzled by the move.
On the next play, Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez hit Braylon Edwards for 18 yards down the right sideline, pushing his team's field-goal try from 50-plus yards to 32. The Jets allowed the clock to reach three seconds left, then called their final timeout, and Nick Folk nailed the kick as time expired to seal New York's 17-16 victory.
"You can look at it a number of different ways," Caldwell said. "One of the things, I guess it was (Santonio) Holmes who caught that (previous) pass, they were in field-goal range at that point in time. So you make a determination on what you want to do.
"Obviously, we tried to do a decent job of taking a look at the field-goal kicker, see how they're doing during warm-ups, what's their range, all of those kinds of things. We not only do our own, but we do the opposition as well. We take a good look at that."
None of those scenarios played out, and one play later, Edwards leaped along the sideline and hung on to Sanchez's high pass to set up the winning field goal.
"You have to live with either result," Caldwell said. "You've gotta make a play or they'll make a play in that situation."