After further review, Vic Fangio would punt again

[KC Wolf]

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In the immediate aftermath of Sunday night’s 22-16 loss to the Chiefs, Broncos coach Vic Fangio expressed regret for the decision to punt from his own 49, facing fourth and three and trailing 19-16 with 6:13 to play.

On Monday, Fangio doubled down on his original decision.

“With six and a half minutes to go, roughly, no matter what we had done, if we had continued that drive and successfully converted the fourth down, we were going to have to come up with a stop on defense,” Fangio told reporters. “Our strong suit hasn’t been third and twos and threes, fourth and twos and threes. In fact, I think we haven’t converted any of the fourth and twos and threes we’ve tried all year. So, combining that fact with the fact that we were going to have to get a stop no matter what happened, I chose for that to be the time for us to get a stop. We punted it down there, I believe they got at about the 10, and we needed to come up with a stop at some point in that game regardless of what we chose to do on that fourth down. So, that was the time that I chose to go get that stop, and unfortunately we held them to a field goal, but it burned too much time at that point.”

In other (fewer) words, Fangio decided to punt and try to stop the Chiefs because the Broncos would have had to stop the Chiefs at some point. But if the Broncos had extended the drive and milked the clock and eventually scored a touchdown, Denver would have led 23-19 without a ton of time for the Chiefs to score.

If after the punt the Broncos had held the Chiefs to a three and out and then had driven for a touchdown, Denver still would have needed to sweat out a final Kansas City drive, unless Denver had scored with no time left.

Any decision can be justified if it’s talked about long enough (other than what the Jets did at the end of the game on Sunday). The best decision when facing the Chiefs always will be to make the decision that keeps Patrick Mahomes on the sideline.

The Chiefs have a bad habit of sleepwalking against inferior opposition. The Chiefs have a good habit of finding the gas pedal when they need to. And they did on Sunday night, driving into field-goal range, delivering the dagger, and leaving the Broncos without enough time to score what would have been a game-winning touchdown.