They were already in a decent with limited elevator authority. Thrust is secondary for speed that case. Pitch is primary. What that mean is if you can’t fix the speed with pitch the power isn’t going to do much. (That’s why power is the last item on stall recovery, got to fix the pitch first). However going from takeoff thrust to idle would have greatly changed the thrust vector possibly causing a further nose down moment. The opportunity to manage speed with thrust went out the window when the nose dropped more than a few degrees below the horizon.