Broncos’ Sean Payton admits this timeout fiasco vs. Chiefs was ‘boneheaded mistake’
There’s a reason the sequence at the end of the first half didn’t make much sense in the Kansas City Chiefs’ 19-8 home victory over the Denver Broncos.
That’s because, as Denver coach Sean Payton admitted after the game, he goofed up.
With the Broncos trailing 10-0 and 28 seconds left, quarterback Russell Wilson was sacked on a third-and-5 at his own 45 for a seven-yard loss. That play ended with 23 seconds left, with the game clock ticking to 18 seconds.
Whistles halted the play. The Chiefs had three timeouts left, so it seemed logical they might’ve called for the stoppage to get a chance at the last possession before halftime.
That’s where it got confusing. Instead, Denver called its final timeout ... all so it could punt the ball back to the Chiefs.
So why did that happen? Payton was honest afterward.
“Listen, that’s a boneheaded mistake by me,” Payton told reporters. “They were calling one (a timeout) as well, and I’m off a down.”
Unfortunately for Payton, he also was decisive with his confusion. Officials added four seconds back to the clock, meaning Denver had to punt it back to KC with 22 seconds left.
That ended up being consequential. Following a short kick and a five-yard Broncos penalty, Patrick Mahomes advanced the Chiefs 19 yards on two plays to set up a Harrison Butker 60-yard field goal attempt ... with 4 seconds left on the clock.
Butker’s kick with the wind slid inside the left upright, giving the Chiefs a 13-0 lead and some momentum heading into the break before they received the ball again in the second half.
Payton was asked by a reporter how important he thought that end-of-half sequence was.
“Look, that’s a three-point swing there,” Payton said, “but man, there’s so many of these other things that jump into my mind relative to opportunities missed.”
Would the Chiefs have eventually taken a timeout there, though, as Payton indicated?
Mahomes seemed to cast some doubt on that afterward when asked about his thoughts on the Broncos deciding to take their last timeout.
“Honestly, there’s a couple of thought processes there. With how windy it was, I think that they were trying to say, ‘Let’s make them field it (the punt).’ We already had one where it kind of got a little shaky there (with a fumble); it was so windy,” Mahomes said. “But at the same time, I don’t think we were going to call timeout. We were kind of satisfied with it. And they called timeout wanting us to field it, which we probably would have done that same situation.”
Mahomes said Butker’s kick was “definitely a turning point” before acknowledging “there’s thought processes both ways” when determining whether to take a timeout.
Something else that’s important to note: The Chiefs likely only had that long field-goal attempt because they won the opening coin toss.
Based on past-season comments from special teams coordinator Dave Toub, KC thinks deeply about this pre-game scenario. The Chiefs, when they win the toss before the game, choose to defer to the second half not because they want the ball after halftime; instead, they do so the opponent must choose to receive, which allows the Chiefs to select the direction they’d like to kick the football.
The Chiefs opt to kick off against the wind for a strategic reason: That means, if there is a field-goal try at the end of the first half, the current will be at Butker’s back.
Payton said the Broncos’ early-week scouting report on the weather played true Thursday night. The gusts would be booming any kicks headed toward the tunnel at the Chiefs’ home stadium, which was the direction KC was headed at the end of the second quarter.
Butker said after the game that he’d hit a 65-yarder going that direction in warmups, so he felt confident he’d have the leg to get it there.
The circumstances all came together perfectly for the Chiefs, who used the three gift points to extend a lead Thursday they’d never relinquish.
And who knows how the game might’ve changed if Payton — as he confessed — hadn’t forgotten what down it was while asking to stop the clock.
“That,” Payton said, “was stupid.”
