Seems like Linehan might have recognized that someone really, really screwed up with that horrible call and would have gone ahead and punted the ball rather than tried to run it out of the EZ. He was nine yards deep in the EZ and had no chance of getting a first down. He was lucky to get back out of the EZ.
But you gotta do what the coach tells you to do. No matter how stupid it was. And that was really stupid.