The Arizona Cardinals nearly got jobbed in their game with the Seattle Seahawks when their opponent was awarded a fourth timeout late in the game. Seattle had been charged their final timeout when Doug Baldwin went down with an injury. As is the case when players go down with an injury in the final two minutes (running clock or non-running clock), a team must spend a timeout or incur a penalty of some sort. But Pete Carroll called a timeout two plays later, and the NFL officials ended up awarding a stop in play that did not exist.
Luckily for Arizona (and probably the NFL), the Seahawks did not score on this drive, and the Cardinals went on to win their game.
Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt talked about the timeout and how happy he was that this timeout didn't affect the outcome of the game. Here's a snippet of his quote there
I obviously feel a lot better than I would have had we not won the game. It’s a tough situation. It’s hard to say how I would have reacted to something, but I think the important thing about this was our guys didn’t let it affect them. Our players knew that they shouldn’t have had a timeout, and in that situation where they had the ball, at the six-yard line with no timeouts, you play the pass, because if they run the ball it’s tough for them to be able to run another play, but our guys played it honest and did a nice job of tackling [Marshawn] Lynch on that play.
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