Todd Bowles had a bizarre timeout strategy during the Buccaneers’ playoff loss

Todd Bowles’ clumsy clock management during the playoffs is becoming an annual tradition.

The Buccaneers coach made some odd choices with his timeouts that didn’t help his team’s chances in Sunday night’s 23-20 home loss to the Commanders in the wild-card round.

Bowles lost crucial time late in the game before calling two timeouts, including a delay due to what he called a “personnel issue.”

He also lost time in the first half on the Buccaneers’ final drive.

Bowles’ choices ultimately didn’t doom the Buccaneers as they scored a touchdown during that final sequence of the first half and Washington could have bled dry on the final drive regardless of the timeouts, but Bowles didn’t put his team in the best position to succeed by letting the clock run out.

This streak follows last year’s questionable strategy in the divisional round when he didn’t use a timeout at the end of a loss to the Lions.

The first delay came after Austin Ekeler caught an 18-yard pass to give the Commanders a first down at the Buccaneers 27-yard line on the first play following the two-minute warning.

Logan Hall faced Ekeler with about 1:51 left, but the Buccaneers didn’t use their first timeout until 1:41 left.

Bowles seemed to indicate — his response didn’t specifically state which play — that his defense had trouble getting lined up after that play, leading to the delay.

“Before the last play we wanted to call a timeout, we wanted to see where they were trying to call a timeout and we had a personnel issue,” Bowles said, “so we called it later than habit.”

Ekeler then ran for eight yards on the next play, but Bowles did not call a timeout, instead choosing to use one after his defense stuffed Ekeler on third down.

“It’s only one yard for a first down, so we had to let the play play out and we had to use it there,” Bowles said.

The Commanders all but locked up the game when Jayden Daniels ran four yards on the next play to secure a first down, hitting the turf with about 48 seconds left.

Bowles didn’t call his final timeout until 40 seconds remained.

In the first half, Bowles let about 13 seconds elapse after Mike Evans advanced the Buccaneers toward the red zone when they trailed 10-3 with less than a minute left in the second quarter.

Evans scored a touchdown later in the drive, but wasting that time gave Tampa Bay less time to work in pursuit of that tying score.

“Proud of the way they fought,” Bowles said. “It was obviously disappointing, we don’t want the season to end like that. We don’t want to point fingers. We had our chances to win this ball game, it obviously wasn’t enough.