I mean, SF is on the road with their QB out. And yet they can still get to the locker room down 7.
The chance they were gonna march 80 yards in 90 seconds with Johnson right there was **very** small. There was a far greater chance of giving up a sack, and/or a couple incompletions and giving Philly a free possession from midfield.
It seems to me that, in general, coaches have learned from analytics (e.g. you rarely see a punt anymore once a team crosses midfield). But I think end-of-half clock management still errs on the side of being way too aggressive. Often, the smart thing is to run it up the middle twice and go to the locker room.
Hell, UT did that with Garrett Gilbert right before the half vs Bama (also with starting QB out with an arm injury). If I recall correctly, we could have gone to locker room down 7, and instead ran a cluster-fuck of a shovel pass deep inside our own end of the field, and gave up a pick-6.
Just a boneheaded high-risk-low-reward decision.