The Denver Broncos only needed a win or a tie on Saturday against the Cincinnati Bengals to clinch their first playoff appearance since the 2015 season.
They ended up getting neither, and head coach Sean Payton is one of the biggest culprits in their failure to do so.
Payton made several baffling coaching decisions in crunch time that ended up costing the Broncos a chance to lock up their playoff spot in what turned out to be a 30-24 overtime loss.
It now leaves the Broncos in a situation where they have to beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 18 to get in. Even though the Chiefs will have nothing to play for, that is still not going to be an easy game.
Payton’s first questionable decision came at the end of regulation when he kicked an extra point after Marvin Mims’ touchdown with eight seconds remaining instead of trying to go for a potential game-winning two-point conversion.
While there is no guarantee the Broncos will be successful if they go for two, there was plenty of reason to at least try it.
Not only because the Bengals defense was still likely stunned given what just happened on the previous play, but also because Denver would have only needed to get two yards against one of the worst defenses in football. With a mobile quarterback in Bo Nix and an entire playbook at their disposal, that was probably the path of least resistance for a win.
Payton opted to kick the extra point, knowing that a tie could still clinch them a playoff spot.
But that puts a lot more moving parts into the situation and also puts pressure on the Broncos defense to try and stop one of the NFL’s best offenses.
In the end, Denver did actually get a stop and get the ball back. But after failing to score, it put the Broncos’ defense back on the field, where Payton would end up making his most costly and indefensible decisions of the night.
With the game now in a sudden-death spot where the next team to score would win, Payton inexplicably used both of his timeouts after the Bengals got themselves into field goal range with less than three minutes to play in overtime.
There was no reason for Payton to have an incentive to stop the clock at that point in the game.
If the Bengals score, the game is over, and the Broncos are not going to get the football back.
If the Bengals did not score, the Broncos would have wanted as much time to run off the clock as possible because they would not need to score at that point. The clock would have been almost meaningless. A tie would have been enough.
In the end, the Bengals did not score because Cade York missed a chip-shot field goal, giving the Broncos the ball back with just over two minutes to play. A first down would have ended it and given the Broncos a chance to kneel on the ball for a tie. Even if they did not get the first down, three runs and a punt could have left the Bengals in a situation where they had almost no time and no timeouts to get into field goal range.
By stopping the clock twice, and combined with an incomplete pass by Denver on third down, it gave the Bengals enough time to move down the field and score.
The players on the field still have to make plays. They did not make enough. But it is also on the head coach to put his players in the best possible position to make plays and succeed. Payton failed to do that in some huge moments on Saturday. Given how much the Broncos invested in him (both in terms of draft pick compensation to acquire him and financially), they should expect better from him in big games.
