According to Indianapolis Colts special teams coordinator Brian Mason, the Denver Broncos were baited into drawing the leverage penalty on kicker Spencer Shrader’s missed 60-yard attempt last Sunday. The penalty put the Colts 15 yards closer, which allowed Shrader to make the second field-goal attempt from 45 yards out as time expired, sealing a one-point loss for the Broncos.
Mason claimed, according to The Indy Star‘s Joel A. Erickson, that the Colts had identified a tendency in the way Broncos special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi called field-goal block packages. The Colts believed that Rizzi would roll out a “jumper” package, and if the offensive line identified who it was, they were to call it out and act accordingly to draw the leverage penalty.
That’s purportedly exactly what Colts lineman Dalton Tucker did. Instead of staying low at the snap, he popped up and punched the Broncos’ “jumper” — Dondrea Tillman — creating a posture where the leaping defender could not avoid placing his hand on Tucker’s back, thus violating the NFL’s leverage rule.
On Thursday, Rizzi held court at Broncos HQ for his weekly presser with local reporters. He acknowledged that by the “letter of the law,” it was in fact a leverage penalty, although he did opine that it happens often and is rarely called.
More interestingly, though, Rizzi addressed the claim by Mason that the Colts had recognized a tendency on film.
“Listen, Brian Mason is a great young coach. I think Brian Mason is going to have a great career in this league, so I respect Brian,” Rizzi said. “Listen, no one self-scouts more than us. We know our tendencies. I would say this to you: the call that we were supposed to run, we’ve never ever run before, ever. So I would have to say that would be coach-speak a little bit.”
Rizzi was adamant that the call he made on that fateful field-goal block attempt had never been run in a game, although it’s unclear if he meant by the Broncos or the New Orleans Saints, or any other NFL team for which he’s coached the third phase. If true, it would have been impossible for Mason to recognize a tendency. It’s clear, though, that there was a jumper in this version of the Broncos’ field-goal block unit, even if it was somehow a novel play-call, as Rizzi says.
“We’ve probably, in my 17 years in the league, we’ve probably run about 80 different field goal blocks, and we ran the call incorrectly. So I would have to kind of say that’s some coach-speak there, but again, I’ve got a lot of respect for Brian,” Rizzi continued. “He does a heck of a job. He’s done a great job in college, and a great job at the Colts.”
Rizzi was sure to emphasize that the Broncos are very aware of the different looks and packages they roll out on special teams, with an eye on camouflaging tendencies.
“I’m very confident that our tendencies, we don’t have that many,” Rizzi said. “And that play that we were supposed to run had never been run before.”
For his part, after claiming that the Colts had identified this Rizzi tendency, Mason told Erickson this:
“If you identify a jumper, instead of staying low like you normally would in a field-goal situation, it would be wise to then step up to punch the jumper,” Mason said.
So what happened? Although Rizzi didn’t mention anyone by name, he said that more than one Broncos player wasn’t aligned correctly for this new play pre-snap. And because the Broncos were out of timeouts, there was nothing that Rizzi or head coach Sean Payton could do to stop it.
We can safely assume that Tillman was one of the misaligned players, as he was the one penalized. And probably nine times out of 10, the Broncos would have been okay. But perhaps because it was an end-of-game situation with elevated stakes, the officials threw the flag.
Payton has already fallen on the sword, accepting the blame for the leverage penalty. And on Monday, he went to great lengths to explain his thoughts. Rizzi didn’t want to recapitulate everything Payton said, but he also took responsibility for a penalty that cost the Broncos a hard-fought Conference win.
“I know Sean went through a lot of it already, so I’m not going to reiterate all the things that he said,” Rizz said. “But from a coaching standpoint, the thing that disappointed me is the execution part—that’s on me. As a coach, any coach, if you go out, [and] we’re not lined up correctly, and we didn’t execute the call that was called. That’s what keeps you up at night as a coach.”
Rizzi is unlikely to suffer the same fate as his predecessors. After the Broncos had a walk-off field-goal blocked by the Kansas City Chiefs last season, a kick that would have sealed their first victory at Arrowhead Stadium since 2015, assistant head coach and special teams czar Mike Westhoff suddenly retired ahead of Week 11, mid-season.
Ben Kotwica kept his job as special teams coordinator until the season ended, at which point, Payton promptly fired him. Rizzi is safe, for now, but it’s worth mentioning that the Broncos’ special teams haven’t been very good or reliable through two games this season.
The Broncos rank dead last in kick return yardage allowed, have lost a fumble on a muffed punt, missed a got-to-have-it field goal attempt in the fourth quarter in Indy, and squandered a win due to an untimely penalty. The third phase has to clean up its side of the street, and fast.
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