NFL Championship Sunday featured the New England Patriots holding off the Denver Broncos 10-7 in the AFC Championship Game, and the Seattle Seahawks taking down the Los Angeles Rams 31-27 in the NFC Championship Game.
During Sunday night’s edition of NFL Primetime, ESPN’s Booger McFarland sounded off on decisions by Broncos head coach Sean Payton and Rams head coach Sean McVay to go for it on fourth down instead of attempting a field goal.
After NFL Primetime showed Broncos-Patriots highlights, host Chris Berman set McFarland up on the topic, specifically regarding Payton’s decision for the Broncos to go for it on 4th-and-1 at the New England 14-yard line with Denver leading 7-0 in the second quarter.
“In retrospect, and it’s easy to be an armchair quarterback or whatever you want to call, I wonder if Sean Payton, Booger, will go, ‘Okay, we could have kicked the field goal, and probably would have made that one and gone up 10-0,’” Berman began. “That (snowstorm) weather might have come in at the end of the game, it might have come in at halftime like it did. But do you think if he looks himself in the mirror, he goes, ‘Ooh, we could have gone up 10-0 and New England hadn’t moved the ball at all’?”
Booger McFarland sounds off on Sean Payton’s decision to go for it on 4th-and-1 instead of trying a field goal in the first half of the Patriots-Broncos AFC Championship. 🏈🎙️ #NFL pic.twitter.com/Ri1EqR3pCs
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 26, 2026
“So, the job of a coach is to put his team in the best situation,” McFarland responded. “You got to understand situational football. Everybody knew the forecast for the game. You knew at some point, the weather was going to get nasty. And at that point, you’re up 7-0, all the momentum is with you. It’s a 31-yard field goal. It’s shorter than an extra point! Extra points are 33 yards. This is a 31-yard field goal. He turned it down.”
“I don’t care what analytics say,” McFarland said. “Sean Payton’s job was to kick that field goal, go up 10-0. Understanding, 1) you keep momentum, 2) the weather was coming, and it was going to be difficult to move the ball. This was the last time they were inside the New England Patriots’ 30-yard line. You never know when it’s going to come.
“And, so I think if you asked Sean Payton in a private moment, I get what analytics say, and I get being aggressive, take the points,” McFarland continued. “Go up 10-0. Keep the momentum. Because you did your homework before the game. You knew the weather was going to turn nasty. Even though Wil Lutz was a good kicker, it was going to be tough to kick in inclement weather. I thought this was a poor coaching decision and move by Sean Payton.”
“If you’re going to go for it, how about run the ball?” McFarland added. “I mean, it’s fourth and three feet. Or a 31-yard field goal. Instead, you go reverse-pivot with a quarterback making his first start.”
After NFL Primetime showed Rams-Seahawks highlights, the conversation then turned to questioning McVay’s decision to go for it with under five minutes remaining on 4th-and-4 at the Seattle 6-yard line with the Seahawks leading 31-27.
The Seahawks get a huge stop!
Kevin Burkhardt with the NFC Championship Game call for Fox. 🏈🎙️ #NFLpic.twitter.com/5hYFRIKSIM
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 26, 2026
“You got to understand, and I get it, there are a lot of people out there that are going to say, ‘Analytics, and ESPN Analytics will say go and all that,’” McFarland said. “Hey, at some point, understand the momentum of the game. Understand how it goes. And at that situation as Sean McVay, you bring (Harrison) Mevis out there, you kick the field goal, now you put the pressure back on Seattle’s offense. And so now, if you’re Seattle’s offense, and if you go three-and-out or you get a ball back, we don’t need to drive for a touchdown. We got a kicker that can kick a 50-yarder. And we’re on turf, so we don’t have to worry about the footing. And so now, the pressure goes back to Seattle’s offense to keep the football.”
Booger McFarland also questioned Sean McVay’s decision to go for it on 4th-and-4 at the Seattle 6-yard line, trailing by 4 with under 5 minutes remaining in the NFC Championship.
“I won a playoff game kicking 5 field goals… You can win with field goals.” 🏈🎙️ #NFL https://t.co/qK65Py0ydw pic.twitter.com/vJFku33u5j
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 26, 2026
“I just think, and I hope it doesn’t rear its ugly head in the Super Bowl, if you’re a coach out there, and you’ve got an opportunity, the name of the game is to score more points than the opponent,” McFarland continued. “Like, last time I checked, a field goal counts as three points… Score more points than the other team. But for some reason, we get coaches that get a little greedy. And I get it. Dan Campbell set this precedent a couple years ago, going for it and being so aggressive. We got to go back to doing the things that used to helped us.”
“I won a playoff game kicking five field goals,” McFarland explained. “The great Indianapolis Colts, we went to Baltimore, we won 15-9 (in January, 2007). You can win with field goals. Don’t be so disappointed and feel like you have to go for everything.”
“And I think if you’re Sean McVay, and you’re Sean Payton, and you have a conference this offseason, they’re going to talk about, ‘Hey, maybe we need to learn how to kick a few more field goals.’”
With the Payton decision, it’s one yard, and the thinking is that you have an opportunity to really take firm control of the game with a potential two-touchdown lead. Also, if you fail to get the first down, at least you have New England pinned back inside their own 20-yard line, and there’s the possibility that a strong opportunity for points will still be there if your defense can get a stop and lead to quality field position for your offense on the ensuing possession.
Additionally, McFarland’s point that it “was the last time [the Broncos] were inside the New England Patriots’ 30-yard line” is actually exactly why you would want to try to maximize the opportunity for a touchdown on 4th-and-1 at the 14. If you don’t think you’ll get many chances for touchdowns, you want to do everything you can to take advantage of red-zone chances.
Obviously, Payton would rather have a field goal over zero points in what turned into a 10-7 loss. But even with the way the Denver defense had been playing and with the weather conditions that were to follow in the second half, the assumption should have been that you would need more than 10 or 13 points to beat NFL MVP candidate Drake Maye and a Patriots team that was a clear road favorite. Additionally, the Patriots had the ball at midfield when they lined up in victory formation for the final two minutes, so it’s possible they would have scored more points if necessary.
Trying to just kick a field goal and taking a double-digit lead there would have been understandable for the Broncos, but Payton would likely tell you that his bigger regret was about the play call and execution rather than not taking the field goal.
As for McVay and the Rams, that one is an even easier decision to go for it. Kicking a field goal to turn a one-score game into a one-score game on 4th-and-4 at your opponent’s 6-yard line with under five minutes remaining is just not smart football.
What we saw all game ahead of that, and what followed, showed exactly why McVay chose to go for it. There was no guarantee of getting a stop and getting the ball back. When the Rams did get the ball back, they were at their own 7-yard line with 25 seconds left and no timeouts remaining. The clock ran out on them at the Seattle 49-yard line. Settling for a field goal likely just results in the Rams losing 31-30 instead of 31-27.
You’re also putting the game in the hands of likely NFL MVP Matthew Stafford to try to get four yards or a go-ahead touchdown. And whether you kick the field goal or fail on the fourth-down try, you still need a stop either way. After the failed fourth-down try, the Seahawks had the ball at their own 6-yard line. Like we mentioned earlier with the Broncos, had the Rams’ defense been able to quickly get a stop and force a punt, the opportunity for great field position and a potential touchdown would still have been there. But the Seahawks’ offense proceeded to go from their own 6-yard line into Los Angeles territory, proving why the Rams would be afraid to just kick a field goal and trust the defense to get a stop.
Payton and McVay are two of the top coaches in football, and their philosophies are a huge reason why the Broncos and Rams were still playing on Championship Sunday. They made decisions that made sense, both in terms of what analytics will say and when considering the real feel of those games.
