On Sunday, the Denver Broncos were bested by the New England Patriots, 10-7 in the AFC Championship. There was plenty to be mad at if you’re a Broncos fan, the inability to contain a scrambling Drake Maye, dropped passes, and missed field goals didn’t help. What doomed the Broncos on Sunday wasn’t any of that, it was poor in-game decisions that sent the Broncos packing and the Patriots to the Super Bowl.
The most glaring ‘oops’ of the game was Sean Payton’s decision to go for it on 4th down instead of kicking the field goal to take a 10-point lead. Broncos Country was raised by Coaches Dan Reeves and Mike Shanahan to always take the points. There is nothing more irritating that orchestrating a long drive only to come away with zero points to show for it. The assumption that there would be other opportunities to score points was mortally foolish, especially with the snowstorm on the way and the Broncos playing their backup quarterback. Forget the analytics, take the stupid points! Whether it was hubris or just an unawareness of the cards he was playing with, Sean Payton brilliantly outcoached himself. It’s a damn shame.
What stings is that the Broncos would have been in this game if they had been disciplined. Sean Payton gambling away the field goal in favor of some dead-in-the-water passing play that was suspect from the snap was really stupid. Denver was moving the ball with the run. Why not stick with what’s working? Instead of showing everyone how smart Payton was, he showed the world his flawed ego. Kick the ball, dummy. If you have to go for it on 4th and 1, run it.
Then there’s the weather. It was apparent watching that both teams were caught off guard by the sudden change. However, because of the poor decisions and lack of execution early on, it onus of performance during the storm was on Denver. How do you not know that kind of weather was coming? The second there was a chance of snow, the goal should have been to stack as many points as possible before the game changed. Denver’s mistakes allowed New England to do just that and that’s why they’re headed to Santa Clara in two weeks. It’s a damn shame.
Coach Payton wasn’t alone in the terrible decisions. Jarrett Stidham’s ham-handed shovel-pass-turned-fumble was a game changing ‘whoopsie’ that also doomed Denver. At no level of football, from pee-wee to the pros, should such a careless play ever happen. He needed to have the awareness to take the sack and live another day, but alas. I get that he’s just a backup and it was a pressure-of-the-moment kind of thing, but big time players make big time plays in big time games and, unfortunately, that will be the play remembered going forward. It’s a damn shame.
Sean Payton likes to remind everyone, especially unsuspecting reporters, just how smart he is. On Sunday, we all saw how smart he can’t be. Playing the AFC Championship like the Broncos didn’t have a backup under center and calling the game like there wasn’t a massive snowstorm about to hit the stadium were mortal mistakes that doomed the Broncos bid to go to the Super Bowl. Yes, there are other factors that also lost the Broncos this game, but if you take the points from the field goal or if Stidham doesn’t glitch out with that shovel pass, the game looks drastically different. It’s a damn shame.
