Is this intended to be tongue-in-cheek? Reading such a statement (which logically implies that "if Todd Bowles had used his final timeout, the Bucs would have won") in a post about how other people's reasoning is insufficiently rigorous is off-putting.
Or Bowles mentally marked the game as over and then didn't notice the Lions messed up with the play clock.
> Now, had Bowles used his last timeout, maybe the Lions decide to punt instead of attempting a long field goal. But Bowles surmised a kick through the uprights would have ensued.
Basically, he would have had 36 seconds because of the clock mismanagement on the side of Detroit. Even with 0 timeouts, you can knock out 4-5 solid plays, which is a lot more than 0 solid plays. He goofed up.
https://apnews.com/article/lions-buccaneers-bowles-campbell-...
Claiming that the Bucs lost because of this error is way off, they almost certainly would have lost anyway.