“The plan was to pick up 5 yards on a QB sneak there, then run a quick hit cross to try to pick up the first down. If he’s stopped short we call the TO and kick the FG. The sack changed things a bit since the quick cross needed to be deeper now and that caused some confusion.
In hindsight, we probably should have called the TO right after the sack and regrouped, but we were still operating under the previous plan and by the time we adjusted it was too late to do much different.”
That doesn’t put blame on the QB and at least acknowledges something you did wrong and can grow/learn from. Instead he took the approach of “nah, we did everything perfectly and it was 100% intentional to have the ball at the opposition 35 with 36 seconds and a timeout and finish the game only running 2 more plays and ending with the TO still in our pocket.”