If he doesn't take timeouts I like to think that we try to get a little closer. If that happens then they are basically done for, because they give themselves no chance to have the ball for a significant amount of time.
Taking the timeouts forced us to run the ball on 3rd down so that there wouldn't be any time left on the clock. It also forced us to settle for a longer field goal If we had thrown the ball and it was incomplete then they would have had 45 seconds to go down and win it.