ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The National Football League is often called a game of inches.
On Sunday, against the Buffalo Bills, one of the critical plays of the game boiled down to a matter of seconds, and then inches.
As the Denver Broncos faced their first road test of the season in Buffalo, they encountered adversity that they had not experienced all season—playing from behind. In an effort to shift the momentum of the game, Broncos’ head coach Vance Joseph reached deep into his bag of tricks, drawing up a fake punt.
“The idea of the fake punt was we wanted to be within 4th-and-1, 4th-and-2,” Joseph explained on Monday, the day after Denver fell to Buffalo 26-16. “It was 4th-and-2.
Down 20-16 with less than a minute remaining in the third quarter, Joseph had the look he wanted—a short fourth down with an unsuspecting opponent as the Broncos were on their own 31-yard line. After Denver’s 3rd-and-5 pass fell two yards short of the markers, Joseph attempted to execute his next play the most discrete way possible.
“We ran our offensive line off, kind of mixed them in with the punt team, and ran those guys back on,” he said, describing the transition from third to fourth down. “We wanted our offensive line versus their punt return team—which is all defensive backs and one linebacker.”
Joseph’s plan, in theory, seemed bulletproof. He was going to have his offensive lineman who all weigh 300-plus pounds, going up against players weighing nearly 100 pounds less, not to mention the fact that Denver’s offensive line led the league in rushing through the first two weeks of the regular season. Everything seemed right, until the players started to take formation.
“We ran our O-line back on, we had the perfect look, but we were short one guy,” Joseph described as he walked the media through his thought process on the critical play. “So when he ran on, it kind of gave them a chance to see what we were doing.”
As cornerback Lorenzo Doss ran on the field to join the rest of Denver’s punt unit, the Bills players noticed something was different. Moments before the ball was snapped, multiple Bills players attempted to call timeout but were not granted the request—again, favoring the Broncos.
At this time, with Buffalo picking up that something odd was about to happen, Joseph thought about calling timeout, but decided not to because everything was still in Denver’s favor, saying, “I thought about it, but I watched their guys.”
“They had one guy with his hand on the ground, had two guys calling timeouts—which they can’t do—so we still had a great play,” he said. “I didn’t want to waste it by saying, ‘I’m watching it. I’m watching it. Okay, should I bail this team out?’”
After deciding his team was still in favorable position, the ball snapped directly to running back D’Angelo Henderson, and he tried to run through the middle of the offensive line. Although his offensive line was going against players much smaller than them, Henderson was only able to get one-yard—half the distance he needed to keep the ball in the Broncos’ possession.
“Watching the tape last night and this morning, if the ball was snapped at the appropriate time, in my opinion, it would have been a good play,” Joseph said as he maintained confidence in his call the day after. “Now it didn’t work, so it was a bad play. It’s solely my fault.”
On the ensuing possession, the Broncos’ defense pushed the Bills’ offense back three yards, but since they started the drive in Denver territory, they were able to convert a field goal—extending their lead to seven points with less than a quarter remaining.
“Obviously the fake punt is my fault,” Joseph said as he fell on the proverbial sword for his team. “It didn’t work, so that falls on me.”
The aspect of surprise wasn’t as surprising as the Broncos hoped. With everything seemingly favoring Denver on the trick play, Joseph’s decision to call the fake punt made sense on the surface. But a lack of execution, and a few seconds of delay caused the Broncos to fall inches short.
