At the two-minute warning in a 13-13 game, the Broncos faced fourth and two from the Chiefs’ nine yard line. Denver lined up to go for it. Before the ball was snapped, Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones flinched into the neutral zone, giving the visiting team a fresh set of downs from the four.
The Broncos scored, and the Chiefs couldn’t close the seven-point margin on their final drive.
After the 20-13 victory, Broncos coach Sean Payton said the offense was never going to snap the ball on the critical fourth-down play.
“It’s a no-brainer freeze,” Payton said, “but it is out of a different formation. One we had never shown. We were going to take the delay of game. We didn’t have a play. I don’t know why we called it Harrisburg. It looks like a play we have called Pittsburgh. No one moves in Harrisburg. I think that’s why we came up with that. It is a unique one because you are on the road, so it involves a heel and then [guard Quinn] Meinerz is barking the cadence out so, hats off to him. . . . That changed the complexity of the clock. That was a big play. . . .
“We were going to take the penalty and kick the field goal. That was the plan, and it was just an oddball formation to run a no-brainer freeze from. Especially on the road.”
The “set hut” call from Meinerz was timed to when quarterback Bo Nix’s foot came up, prior to the snap that was never going to happen. And it prompted to get Jones to move just enough to give the Broncos a first and goal.
But for that moment, the Chiefs would have gotten the ball back needing only a field goal to tie and a touchdown to win. Which may have resulted in something other than Denver’s 13th victory of the season.
