With the Denver Broncos trailing 24-27 to the Indianapolis Colts late in the fourth quarter, Aqib Talib poked Colts tight end Dwayne Allen in the eye. The result of the play was an automatic first down for Indy; they were able to run out more of the clock before running it all out due to a holding penalty on Danny Trevathan. Those dumb penalties doomed Denver in their first loss of the season.
After the game, Talib called out Allen for his acting after the incident.
And on Monday, Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak talked to the media about many things, including the incident.
“I sat with Aqib on the plane coming home last night [and] had a long talk with him,” Kubiak said Monday. “He’s wrong. He needs to stay out of the situation. It hurt the team. He knows that, but by no means—I’m convinced that he had no intentions of poking anybody in the eye. That’s where we’re at. The league is reviewing the situation.”
Then, a bit later this afternoon, the NFL decided to suspend Talib for one game due to the eye poking incident. Talib is expected to appeal the decision and it’s unknown whether or not he’ll play this Sunday as the Broncos host the Kansas City Chiefs at 2:25 p.m. MT at Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium.
It wasn’t just Talib’s poke in the eye which helped the Colts win the game, the hold by Trevathan as well as two other defensive penalties on that drive alone kept it alive.
“I’m very concerned,” Kubiak said about the defensive penalties. “Statistically, we have the No. 1 defense in football, but we’re also the most penalized. We’ve got a great thing going on. We’ve got something that needs to get corrected. We have to find a way in the second half of the season to turn that around.
“That starts with me, [Defensive Coordinator] Wade [Phillips] and the coaches and players’ responsibility,” Kubiak continued. “You’re going to have some penalties at times, but you can’t have selfish penalties that hurt the football team. That has been addressed. We will go to work on getting that taken care of.”
Without a doubt, Denver has an opportunity to compete and even win Super Bowl 50 thanks to their dominant defense. But if the players can’t get those boneheaded and timely mistakes corrected, they can kiss those hopes goodbye.
“I think we had four penalties going into the last drive,” Kubiak recalled. “Four penalties—that’s a dang good football team. They’re pretty good, and we get four or five in the last drive. That’s extremely disappointing. That’s what has to stop. We’re going to maintain our aggression as a team. I don’t ever want to take that away, but we’ve got to make sure that we’re thinking about the team in every situation, in everything we do.”
Denver, as a team, is stacked with talented veterans; most of the playmakers aren’t youngsters. There is no excuse for an eight-year veteran like Talib for his eye gouge, and none for fourth-year pro Trevathan holding on the field goal which allowed the Colts to run out the clock.
Leadership must start at the top, and for most of this season, it’s been clear the team has been more disciplined with Kubiak as head coach compared to recent years. That leadership extends to the players and the defense needs Talib — one of their most talented — to be a veteran leader as well.
