Payton Made the Wrong Decision on Broncos' Pivotal 4th-&-3 vs. Raiders
In the immediate aftermath of the Denver Broncos' season-opening loss to the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, a vast majority of the focus on what went wrong has gone to two major decisions, acquiring Wil Lutz as the starting kicker and opening the season with a surprise onside kick.
That line of thinking is incredibly warranted, as the Raiders would get incredible field position to start the game after the onside kick was illegally touched by Tremon Smith before it traveled the requisite 10 yards, and Lutz missed an extra point and a 55-yard field goal in the game, costing the Broncos four points in a one-point loss.
However, those decisions and the fallout from them had limited effect on the game when taking into account how it would eventually turn out, as well as taking into consideration all of the context needed when evaluating the game.
The onside kick to open the game, while not entirely a great idea, was literally the first play of the season. Go play good defense and move forward.
If you need to blame a missed 55-yard field goal as the reason why the Broncos lost their seventh straight game to their hated division rivals, maybe Sean Payton's offense should have done more to score more points to begin with, or gotten more yards to get them into a more manageable field goal situation.
There was one decision, though, that ended up costing the Broncos a shot to win the game. Let's examine it thoroughly.
Setting the Scene
Late in the fourth quarter, the Broncos defense had just surrendered their third long drive of the game, allowing a second touchdown pass to Jakobi Meyers after several explosive plays marched the Raiders down the field on a six-play, 75-yard drive to take a 17-16 lead.
The Broncos offense, which had been gashing the Raiders defense in the running game all afternoon, only managed to gain seven yards in their next three plays, setting them up with a 4th-&-3 situation with just over five minutes remaining and two timeouts in their pocket.
Rather than opting to go for it on fourth down, Payton elected to punt the ball away and hope his defense could make a stop. That was effectively the end of the game, as the Raiders would go on an 11-play, 41-yard drive and eat the rest of the time off of the clock.
Why it Was a Bad Decision
Analytics have their place in football, and at face value, they offer up the correct way to go about making decisions in situational football. In a situation where you are down by one point and facing a 4th-&-3 situation at your own 32-yard line with more than five minutes to go and two timeouts, the book says that the decision is more of a coin flip than a true probability. Essentially, go with your gut.
This should be incredibly bothersome to fans in Broncos Country when given the full context of the situation.
First, the Broncos' defense was visibly out of gas after having surrendered several long drives throughout the game. Denver had practically no answer for the quick passing game that the Raiders were deploying, and Jakobi Meyers and Davante Adams had already shown the world that Damarri Mathis had no answer for them coming off of the line of scrimmage.
Secondly, at that point in the game, the Broncos were averaging over 4.4 yards per carry on the ground, with several plays in which either of Javonte Williams or Samaje Perine had broken tackles en route to nice chunk runs.
With all of the investments in the running game in free agency in 2023 — from a pair of run-blocking offensive linemen to a couple of blocking tight ends to adding a power back in Perine — combined with the relative success that the Broncos had on the ground to that point in the game, this should have easily been a go-for-it situation.
What if Denver Fails on 4th-&-3?
On the flip side of this, if the Broncos didn't get the first down, they would have handed the ball to the Raiders deep in their own territory with a guaranteed field goal on the board. From there, it's impossible to prove a counterfactual, but we'll examine a couple of scenarios in the late-game situation.
First, it's most likely that the Raiders are playing for a touchdown to take an eight-point lead in this situation. Again, their quick passing game was clicking at will, and Mathis had already allowed a pair of touchdown receptions to Meyers.
Where this is an advantage for the Broncos is if you allow them a quick score, you maximize your time remaining and keep both timeouts, putting your offense on the field with somewhere around four minutes remaining, two timeouts, and the two-minute warning.
With Russell Wilson already having a few long drives of his own against the Raiders, that seems like a much more winnable scenario, given the circumstances.
Our second scenario revolves around the Raiders running the ball and keeping the points they have in hand. Oftentimes in late-game scenarios, teams will run the football three times and force the defense to use their remaining timeouts.
Denver's defense had already shown that they were capable of slowing down Raiders running back Josh Jacobs, who only had 16 total carries for 35 yards at the time of the punt.
With the Broncos keen on allowing either a quick scoring play or selling out on the run to force a quick field goal, calling quick time-outs to extend the game as much as possible, they could have gotten another opportunity to either tie or win the game with a few minutes of time on the clock and potentially even the two-minute warning to help stop the clock.
Instead, the Broncos lost yet another close game down the stretch because the defense couldn't hold their water in a critical situation.
The Bigger Takeaway
Looking at the full context and examining all of the possible outcomes of an NFL football game is a fool's errand. It's impossible to prove a counterfactual. But when looking at one clear example of a critical situation gone wrong, it's easy to question how the outcome could have changed rather dramatically.
The bigger problem here is the fact that Payton chose to march his defense back onto the field rather than let the offense have a crack at getting three yards against a defense that hadn't done much to stop the Broncos up to and until that particular point. Payton is known as an offensive innovator and a masterful head coach in situational football.
Why this one went the way it did is beyond me. It doesn't make sense.
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