John Fox on Broncos Kneel Down: It Wasn’t Time For the Knockout Punch
By Josh Hill
The Denver Broncos are one-and-done in the NFL playoffs, but it’s not the fact that their season is over its how their season ended that has Broncos fans everywhere in a fit of rage. With over 30 seconds left in the game and two timeouts, the Broncos elected to take a knee rather than try to go 45 yards to put Matt Prater in field goal range.
While the move has drawn harsh criticism, Broncos head coach John Fox says that he’d do the same play again in a heartbeat.
“That was pretty devastating,” Fox said, via the Denver Post. “There is a certain amount of shock value. It’s like a fighter being on the ropes — it didn’t seem like the time to go for a knockout punch. It didn’t seem to be the right time to go for the jugular. I’d do that again 10 times out of 10 if faced with that situation.”
Fox’s conservative style was backed up by Broncos vice president John Elway, who also believes the passive move was the right one to make. But while the two men in charge in Denver are backing each other up on the controversial move, it was still the wrong one to make no matter which way you spin it. The argument could have been made that Manning might have thrown an interception in those 30 seconds or the ball could have some how been turned over.
But on Sunday, when Matt Ryan and the Falcons drove the field with the same amount of time left on the clock and the same amount of timeouts and they won the game, any argument Fox and Elway had instantly became invalid.
No matter how you spin it, you don’t throw almost $100 million at Peyton Manning to have him take a knee in the AFC Divisional Playoffs. If that was your strategy all along, perhaps the Broncos are better off with Tim Tebow because having the best quarterback to ever play the game take a knee in a situation he lives in is just as stupid of an idea.