ANALYSIS : Shell Let Clock Run Down and Butler Didn’t Beat Him

As the Chicago Bears were driving to a potential winning field goal Sunday, did the Raiders have any alternative other than to bite their nails and agonize?

Raider Coach Art Shell could have called a timeout. Jim Harbaugh’s scramble down the field and out of bounds and a subsequent penalty gave the Bears a first down at the Raider 12-yard line and automatically stopped the clock.

Neal Anderson’s one-yard run moved the ball to the 11-yard line with just under a minute to play.

That would have been the Raiders’ opportunity to stop the clock.

Watching at home on television, that might have seemed like the logical choice, especially because the field-goal attempt would be only a 28-yarder.

But down on the field in Chicago, that distance did not appear so automatic. The Bears’ Kevin Butler would be forced to kick into a swirling wind from a field in bad shape, containing chunks of mud and a scattering of sand.

“There were awful conditions,” said Raider kicker Jeff Jaeger, describing the weather and shape of the field.

Shell had just seen Butler miss from even closer at the same end of the field.

If he called a timeout, he gave the Bears a chance to get closer, to get a shot at an easier field goal, perhaps to even get all the way into the end zone on a pass as the Bears had done on the previous drive.

Instead, Shell chose to keep the pressure of the clock on Chicago and hope the Bears messed up.

Indeed, they nearly did even before Butler’s kick. Harbaugh went down to one knee on the next play instead of spiking the ball. A Bear lineman asked for a timeout the team didn’t have.

With all the confusion, time nearly ran out, Harbaugh finally stopping the clock with a spike with a single second remaining.

That did give the Bears an opportunity, but Butler’s kick, with all the elements involved, proved too difficult.

Call time out, let the Bears have the potential to get closer and then have perhaps 30 seconds to try to come back. Or hold the Bears where they were and make them kick the tougher field goal.

Shell chose the latter.