Carl
Cheesehead
No, timeouts are more valuable before the two minute warning when you're on defense and need the ball back. Before the two-minute warning you get a free timeout to stop the clock (and if you're assuming that you can't stop the other team from running the ball then you don't need timeouts anyway because you've given up). If you have three timeouts and the offense has a first down with 2:30 left in the game then you can stop them and still have the two-minute warning as a timeout for the offense and you probably get the ball back with 2:05-2:10 left on the clock. Time for one play before the two-minute warning and then you have two full minutes to get down the field. If you wait until AFTER the two-minute warning, you get the ball back with ~1:40 left on the clock and no stoppage to help. You've effectively given up almost 30 seconds of offense by using the timeouts after the two minute warning.
My bad. You're totally right.