Woody Paige: Conservative John Fox Brings Broncos to Their Knees
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Woody Paige: Conservative John Fox brings Broncos to their knees Woody Paige The Denver Post January 12, 2013 The cold, hard fact is the Broncos lost everything Saturday. And they blew it. They lost the overtime coin toss. They lost a cinch victory with 31 seconds left in the fourth quarter by blowing coverage. They lost the game on an intercepted pass late in the fifth quarter. They lost the playoff game early in the sixth quarter on a 47-yard field goal. They lost their chance at a ninth AFC championship game. They lost the opportunity for the franchise to win a third Super Bowl. Peyton Manning lost the prospect of playing a Super Bowl in his hometown of New Orleans and winning a second NFL championship. The Broncos lost the lead four times. They lost two interceptions and a fumble, all Manning turnovers. They lost a dozen arguments with the officials. They lost a rare home playoff game. The Broncos lost everything from the regular season in one historic postseason game. In a frozen conundrum on a Dr. Zhivago kind of day, in the chilliest and longest playoff game in Denver history, Ravens 38, Broncos 35. Rather than Holliday, Hillman and the Hallelujah High Way, it was to Hades in a Handbasket. Everybody shares the blame, but coach John Fox should get more than his share for his conservative approach. After the Ravens shocked a bitterly cold crowd with a 70-yard balloon bomb from Joe Flacco to Jacoby Jones, with just over half a minute to go, to tie the game for the fifth time, at 35-35, the Broncos had the ball at their 20-yard line, had two timeouts and had the quarterback who had produced more winning drives in the fourth quarter than anybody else who ever played the game. What did Fox choose to do? He had Manning take a knee. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Even though Matt Prater had Charliebrowned a field-goal attempt earlier, scuffing the ground before he kicked the football, the Broncos could have gotten him into range again by picking up about 35 to 40 yards in the final half minute of regulation. They had time and timeouts for six plays. You don't want to go into overtime against anyone, but especially against a veteran team that had badly damaged the Broncos' defense four times in four quarters. Anything can happen in overtime. And the worst ultimately did. It's one thing for Fox to order punts on fourth-and-1, or run out the clock at the end of a first half when he also had timeouts to spare. But it's entirely another to not take a legitimate crack at winning the game in regulation when you have Manning and those receivers and a kicker such as Prater. Remember what happened to the Pittsburgh Steelers a year ago in a playoff game here? The Broncos, Tim Tebow and Demaryius Thomas beat them on the first play in an extra period. (Thomas caught what should have been the winning touchdown pass in the fourth quarter Saturday.) In the last playoff game in Denver the unusual occurred. Fox had to know better. But he surrendered with 30 seconds to go. Manning looked less than in agreement when he took the snap, dropped to a knee, tossed the ball to the referee and departed the field as the clock expired. Thirty seconds can be an eternity for Manning. The Broncos couldn't score in overtime, but stopped the Ravens. Then, when the Broncos appeared headed toward victory, Manning, rolling right, tried to thread a throw to Brandon Stokley back over the middle. The Ravens intercepted it. The steam that rose from the mouths of 75,000 in the near-zero temperatures was the air going out of the stadium. Three plays. The plays weren't "Phantom of the Opera," "Wicked" and "Guys and Dolls," but they were big hits back in Baltimore. The Ravens had only three plays worth anything in the first half and yet they were tied 21-21 at the break. All three went for touchdowns. The first was a 59-yard strike from Flacco to Torrey Smith. That was followed by an interception on a deflected pass for a touchdown, and Flacco and Smith again connected just before halftime. Otherwise, the Ravens would have been frozen out. Instead, they were tied. The Ravens had only a couple of plays in the second half, but one went for 70 yards with 31 seconds left, and was really, in reflection, enough. So it seemed they would score in the second overtime following the interception. The Broncos acted finished. The Ravens did score, and the Broncos were finished. And, just like that, one of the most successful seasons in Broncos history was over, and success had become failure. All three teams on the field Saturday generally had issues. The Broncos, the Ravens and the officials, who acted suspiciously like replacements. But the Broncos were the real losers. Mark Kiszla: Rahim Moore "taking the blame" for his epic blunder Mark Kiszla The Denver Post January 12, 2013 Loser won't be the worst name Broncos safety Rahim Moore will be called after committing the biggest orange-and-blue blunder in team history. "I'm taking the blame for it. Hey, I lost the game for us. It is what it is," Moore said Saturday evening, his voice cracking after Denver was eliminated from the NFL playoffs with a shocking 38-35 double-overtime loss to Baltimore. In a Denver locker room where grown men fought back tears and quarterback Peyton Manning's storybook finish was shattered before the final chapter could begin, Broncos coach John Fox had to find some way to say goodbye. Trouble is, mere words never speak louder than the scoreboard. So Fox stood before his disconsolate players and sent a direct, tough love message straight from the heart: "Don't let this defeat define you." Since the Broncos first pulled on uniforms in 1960, nobody has ever made a worse error than Moore. In an instant, what appeared to be a safe 35-28 Denver lead and a date with destiny turned into nightmare that will make coaches, players and fans afraid to close their eyes from now until the Super Bowl. But this also must be stressed: In the history of this proud franchise, no player has ever stood taller as a man than Moore, as he took full responsibility for the mistake. "There's never an 'I' in win. But there's an 'I' in lose," Moore said. "Because when you lose, you've got to look at yourself." Moore is doomed to be buried under 5,280 feet of pain, after stumbling under a desperation, 70-yard touchdown pass by Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco to Jacoby Jones during the final minute of regulation. This defeat was more bitter than the 10 degrees showing on the thermometer when Moore turned a prevent defense into a slow-motion nightmare that allowed the Ravens to tie the game with 31 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. This loss will leave a scar as deep and ugly as the time Jacksonville shocked quarterback John Elway and his Denver teammates so badly with a 30-27 upset in January 1997 that you could hear old Mile High Stadium groan. "This loss was worse," insisted Broncos alum Alfred Williams, a defensive lineman on the Denver team upset by the Jaguars 16 years ago. As Flacco threw a prayer high and deep into the 10-degree air, Williams sat wearing a throwback Karl Mecklenburg jersey in the same stadium with 76,732 spectators and felt his stomach drop as Moore futilely leapt at the pass with the same hopelessly lost look as a Little League outfielder watching a ball sail over his head. "I think I got a little too happy," said Moore, admitting he was going for the interception that would've made him a hero, rather than playing sound defensive technique. "I misjudged it, man." It was an unforgivable mistake by anybody paid good money to play safety in the NFL. It will cause too many sleepless nights to count. It might have cost the 36-year-old Manning his last, best chance at another Super Bowl ring. It was a party balloon Moore popped. "You had this game won," Williams said. "You work on that play Baltimore scored a touchdown 100 times in practice. This was embarrassing." There will be 1,000 fingers pointed in defeat. The officials made so many head-shaking bad calls that S, M and H keys were broken throughout the Broncos Twitterverse. Fox's play calling at the end of regulation was so painfully conservative that you wondered if he was afraid to win. Manning threw a mindless interception that set up the 47-yard, game-winning field goal by Baltimore kicker Justin Tucker. But only Moore will be in the crosshairs of blame. Goat will not be the worst four-letter word he is called. "The worst thing about it is," Moore said, staring directly in my eyes, "is we're going home. We're going home off a play I could've made, and I play I'm here to make. Coach Fox and the staff and everybody's around me to make that play. And I didn't make it." After winning 11 games to close the regular season, after earning the No. 1 seed in the AFC, it all came crashing down with a single blunder. I had to know.