Sean Payton: Going to overtime was the right decision

After the Broncos scored a touchdown with eight seconds left in Saturday’s game against the Bengals, quarterback Bo Nix could be seen holding up two fingers in reference to trying a two-point conversion to win the game.

Head coach Sean Payton went the other way, however. The Broncos kicked an extra point to tie the game 24-24 and go to overtime, which turned out to be a good turn for the Bengals as they were able to score a touchdown and keep their playoff hopes alive in the extra session.

The Broncos would have clinched a playoff spot with a win or a tie and Payton said after the game that “it probably would’ve been a little easier decision” to go for two if the “tie element” wasn’t part of the picture. Payton said he thought it was the correct decision and “in the end, we didn’t make enough plays and they did.”

“We discussed it all,” Payton said in his postgame press conference. “Plenty of time, plenty of time, plenty of time and the decision we made is the right one. . . . A lot of it is your gut relative to how the toss goes. We were moving a little bit on offense, and then weighing the percentages of the two-point conversion. I think that had a lot do with it.”

Nix said he was going off “straight emotion” in signaling to go for two, but that’s “not always the wisest decision” and that he thought the choice to go to overtime was the right one as well.

That might be the case, but the Broncos have now gone from having three games to win one to needing a win in Week 18 to assure themselves of a playoff berth. Facing a Chiefs team with nothing on the line could work to their advantage, but the margin for error is now gone for Denver.

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/sean-payton-going-overtime-decision-132907178.html

Author : ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports

Publish date : 2024-12-29 13:29:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.