Giants vs. Cowboys: Kicker-Icing Timeouts Are Good for NFL

Timeouts haunt Dan Bailey’s dreams.  A whistle that isn’t triggered by a penalty or the end of a quarter; one that blows a play dead as he watches the football sail through the goalposts.  For the second straight week, a game-winning/tying field goal off the foot of Bailey has been negated because of a timeout.

Dallas Cowboys fans will cry that the absurd practice of icing a kicker should be taken out, but the risky strategy is good for the NFL.

A game-winning kick comes with incredible suspense; a dilemma so dramatic that you can feel your heart pounding in anticipation of the snap.  And just as the snap, the hold and the kick are successfully or unsuccessfully executed, a timeout forces the kicking team to reset and the fan to relive that event.  As you hold your breath and the sequence of events repeats itself in slow motion, a coach and a kicker’s reputation is on the line.

Those two roles are defined differently than most on a football team.  A coach maintains a grasp on his job only if he can consistently put check-marks in the win column.  A kicker is raised to the label of a hero or reduced to the scapegoat depending on the outcome of a single kick.

If a head coach rolls the dice and is lucky, he will be looked upon as a genius as opposed to a fool if he fails.

On Sunday night, Tom Coughlin walked away from a New York Giants victory looking wise, as Jason Pierre-Paul blocked Bailey’s second field-goal attempt, sealing the W.  Last week, Jason Garrett comically iced his own kicker, sending the Cowboys game against the Arizona Cardinals into overtime. 

In the chess match that coaches are involved in throughout an NFL game, icing the kicker is simply a move that can potentially checkmate the opposition or backfire in your face: ice at your own risk.  It may seem dirty to the losing squad, but it creates suspense like no other strategy in the game.

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer. Follow him on Twitter.