We learned about Sean Payton’s end of game management tonight
Aug 11, 2023, 11:39 PM
The Denver Broncos appeared to score a game-winning touchdown to break a tie with the Arizona Cardinals with just 90 seconds left in their preseason opener.
But then came David Blough’s third-string offense to lead the Cards 75 yards over 10 plays to punch in a touchdown to make it 17-16 with a conversion still to go. The Birds went for the win, given there is no overtime in preseason anyhow, and wound up with a successful two-pointer to win 18-17.
“There’s going to be a lot of things we like in that tape,” Payton said Friday night. “I just don’t like the fact that we didn’t want.”
But the Broncos did leave too much time for Blough and Forever Buff Daniel Arias, who caught two passes on the drive, en route to the game-winning score. This leads to the question—and yes it’s only the preseason—should the Broncos have run out the clock and kicked a field goal?
Denver had a first-and-goal from the four-yard line with 102 seconds left. And yeah the kicker combo of Brett Maher and Elliot Fry had missed three field goals but this was going to be a gimmie. Still you have to factor in the Cardinals had two timeouts left. Should Denver have tried to make the Cards at least burn one?
“51 seconds left, I don’t like that,” Payton said. “One timeout, no timeouts, we’re taking a knee. They have two timeouts, we hand it off or take a knee there are 51 seconds left for a field goal so I don’t like that. I’m familiar with the situation but 51 seconds left is too much time.”
Doubt how it played out for the Broncos on Friday, sure but at least Payton has a strong process with conviction. And it does make sense. Lets say Denver goes up 13-10 with 51 seconds left, the Cards only would’ve needed to go 30 or so yards to kick a long game-tying field goal.
But what wasn’t maybe factored in is that Payton chose to introduce losing into the occasion and given the strange no overtime rules of preseason maybe that was overlooked. What we do know is Payton trusted his defense, which only had allowed one touchdown to that point, to not let up 75 yards and a two-pointer—they failed.
In this failure what we found out about Payton in orange and blue is that he’s not scared to lose, he’ll go for the win and that bravado is why he’s in Broncos Country and it’s rare in the NFL.
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