I disagree with this.
You actually do kill more clock by not going OOB, even outside of 5 minutes in the fourth (and outside of two minutes in the second quarter), because if a ball carrier goes OOB the game clock resumes when the ball is re-spotted; the game clock does not keep running without interruption. You can shave another few seconds off the clock per play by going down in bounds where you don’t realistically stand to gain material additional yards by committing your path to OOB, as a result. I don’t recall any play where I felt the ball carrier fucked up on this.
Also, I think they snapped the ball with 10-14 seconds left on the play clock on several plays in order to take advantage of the Chargers D tiring, not allowing them to regroup and tee off on the snap count, and putting Mac in rhythm on some passing calls.
It’s a balance. In a perfect world - eg, Madden video game - you can bleed the clock down to one second on every play and get first down after first down by running three to four times every set of downs, but they’re trying to both bleed clock AND get more first downs there, all without a chance to actually kill the entire clock.
Even during Brady times I can remember often wondering why the Patriots would snap the ball with several seconds left on the play clock in that exact situation. They've been doing it for a while right up until they are that point where a second or two is the difference between getting to the two minute warning or not. I think it must be coaching. That, as you say, getting the play right is more important than getting those last few seconds off the clock. I do think you're right that the defense can tee off when you take it all the way down and often the offensive line has some fatigue by sitting in the crouch for 20 seconds not moving at risk of a false start.
On the first point about the clock, one of those little things that seems kind of lame is that if a receiver goes out of bounds at 5:01, the clock can run down all the way to about 4:30 or so on the next play depending on how fast they make the ball ready for play. But if he goes out of bounds at 4:59 it stops. I hate little incongruities like that. Why should a guy who goes out with more time on the clock be allowed to take the game further down without a stop than a guy who goes out bounds with less time left? I think what they should do in that situation is wind the clock on ready for play but then stop it again at 5:00 (but keep the play clock going).
There used to be a thing like this in college basketball. After a made basket the clock would run. The defense could take its sweet time gathering up the ball and then moving to the spot to inbounds and between the time the ball went through the hoop and the ref completing the 5 second call it could take 10 seconds or even more. The rule used to be that the clock stopped on a made basket only under 1:00 left in the game. So, if the ball went through the hoop at 1:01 it might not be until :50 or so that the defense would actually have to inbound. But if it went through at 59.9, the clock would stop. That really bugged me.
I mentioned it once when a bunch of guys were watching the tournament and tried to make the case that the clock should always stop at 1:00 if they are inbounding. It got ugly. Nobody understood what I was talking about and they ended up making fun of me for like the next three games asking if I was ok with the clock at random times, like 14:50 or whatever. Much like will probably happen to me in this thread, now.
I'm sure Mac will be forcefully reminded of this during the week. Brady would never have done that. Mac will get the point, I'm sure.
Edit -- sorry, you posted while I was posting. But I can totally remember Brady doing. There were times when he would snap with like 20 seconds left and we would lose our shit in game threads. I think it even happened more than once in the playoffs.
