STC Darren Rizzi says Broncos ran new play on game-losing FG

The Denver Broncos got walked off in Week 2 because a rarely called penalty gave the Indianapolis Colts a second, much easier shot at a game-winning field goal.

Broncos special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi took responsibility Thursday for the sequence that led to the penalty and the loss, saying the breakdown came down to execution and alignment in a high-pressure moment.

“There was a late-minute confusion on the field,” Rizzi said. “A couple of guys switched spots in the heat of the battle. Unfortunately, at that point, we didn’t have a timeout. We burned all our timeouts, and so we were just aligned incorrectly. And again, that’s on me. That’s on the coach.”

Rizzi said the Broncos did not execute the call he had sent in and pushed back on the notion that the Colts had simply anticipated Denver’s tendencies.

“The call we were supposed to run, we’ve never, ever run before,” he said. “We’ve probably, my 17 years in the league, we’ve probably run about 80 different field goal blocks, and we ran the call incorrectly… I’m very, very confident that our tendencies, we don’t have that many, and that the play that we were supposed to run had never been run before.”

The penalty that gave the Colts a mulligan — a leverage infraction on Dondrea Tillman — is infrequently called, Rizzi acknowledged, but he said officials were within their rights.

“As far as the penalty goes, the leveraging call, was it letter of the law a foul? Yes,” Rizzi said. “Are there many of those throughout the year that don’t get called? Yes. So I get it, I guess probably because the play was in an escalated situation.”

Rizzi emphasized that the end-of-game chaos and the Broncos’ lack of timeouts contributed to the miscue, but he placed the blame squarely on himself for the failed execution.

“The thing that’s disappointing to me is the execution part,” he said. “Any coach, if you go out, we’re not lined up correctly, we didn’t execute the call that was called. And that’s what keeps you up at night as a coach.”

The Broncos also missed a field goal right before the Colts walked off with a win — a special teams issue. Rizzi affirmed his faith in Wil Lutz moving forward.

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