The Denver Broncos lost in a way that has never happened before. The NFL first created the leverage rule in the 2009 season. Including Sunday’s games it has only been called 51 times. The rule is stated like this in the NFL rulebook
Placing a hand or hands on a teammate or opponent to gain additional height to: (1) block or attempt to block an opponent’s kick or apparent kick, or (2) attempt to jump through a gap to block an opponent’s kick or apparent kick.
Until yesterday this had never been called
on a game-deciding FG. It had been called on a game-deciding extra point (in the 2023 game between the Chiefs and the Bucs).
Most refs are loathe to make a call of any kind on the last play of a game even if the foul is egregious. Refs prefer to let “the players decide the game”.
There is some debate about whether or not this was actually leverage as it is defined in the rulebook.
But even if this was leverage, it’s rare for a crew to throw a flag that literally determines the outcome of a game.
There were plenty of questionable calls late in this game, from the facemask on Adam Trautman where he didn’t touch the opponent’s facemask or grab inside his helmet to the delay of game on JK Dobbins for spiking the ball after his run. The spiking penalty is rarely called although, like leverage, it could be called much more frequently.
That being said, the Bronco defense laid a big egg on Sunday. The Broncos D allowed 473 yards a week after allowing 133. A week after getting six sacks and a plethora of QB pressures, the Broncos had one sack and only five pressures.
Both Bronco ILBs, Alex Singleton and Justin Strnad were made to look foolish by Jonathon Taylor and Tyler Warren. Additionally Daniel Jones was made to look like an elite QB, something that he has proven he isn’t. Now it’s possible that he somehow has had a Rich Gannon-esque late career epiphany, but I think the carriage is going to turn back into a pumpkin soon. I was surprised to find that this was only Jones’ 14th best start by passer rating. He had a passer rating of 107.0. His career best was career start (against Houston in 2022) he had a passer rating of 153.3. He has 10 career games with a passer rating of 110 or better.
Jones only had one other start against the Broncos and he fared about the same as he did in this game – throwing and running for one touchdown in each game. In his previous start against the Broncos he went 22/37 for 267. He went 23/34 for 316 on Sunday.
The Bronco offense scored five touchdowns, but given the players who were not playing for the Colt defense, they should have put up more than that. The Colts were without their two best cornerbacks and their best pass rusher. Yes the Broncos did not give up a sack or a QB hit, but that’s cold comfort after a loss where the Broncos should have been scoring on every drive.
Too often the Bronco offensive line was getting pushed back by the Colt DL. The Colts finished the game with with five tackles for loss. The Bronco defense only had three.
The Bronco run defense was not great. They only stopped Taylor for negative yards or no gain twice (-2 and 0) and they only held him to 2 yards or fewer on ten of his 25 runs. In addition to his 68 yard run (where he should have been stopped for a loss), he also had two runs of 10, two runs of 9, a run of 8, two runs of 6 and a run of 5 yards. While Taylor is an elite runner with a good run blocking OL, he was aided by some terrible angles taken by the Bronco ILBs and some missed tackles by the Bronco DEs, DTs and OLBs. PFR hasn’t assigned missed tackles yet for this game. According to PFR, the Broncos only had 78 missed tackles all last season. So five or six in one game would be a terrible showing. That 78 missed tackles was the third fewest in the NFL last season. The Colts had 157 which was worst in the league last season.
