It’s amazing how many coaches across many sports employ this strategy—and it turns a lot of comfortable wins into nail-biting wins, or losses.
My philosophy has always been to never let up—even when you’re comfortably ahead—until there is absolutely no chance for the other team to come back. Using the assumption that your opponent will score on all of their possessions and you will not score on any of yours, playing safe ball is not advisable until the other team has fewer potential possessions left than it would take to score enough to win the game.
It’s not perfect but it works a lot better than just trying to run out the clock.
There are good times to go conservative, when the clock becomes your primary opponent. But that’s late. Never with less than 10 minutes left. Especially if you’ve got a crap run game. It’s especially damning of McCarthy how many 4th quarter wins Rogers has where the team had a lead in the 3rd. Rogers probably got back nearly half the leads McCarthy lost.