What in the world was Vic Fangio thinking?
His Denver Broncos had battled tough all day long against a better Las Vegas Raiders team in the Mile High City. While Fangio’s Broncos have been much improved on the defensive side of the ball since he took over two years ago, they have lacked the ability to force turnovers.
To wit, the Broncos were -20 in turnover differential entering Week 17, which was by-far the worst in the league. They not only led the league in turnovers, but had the least takeaways as well (12). But on this 2020 season finale Sunday, the Broncos forced four turnovers by playing smart and physical football on the defensive side.
And Fangio’s team capitalized for 13 points on those four turnovers, which was enough to help Denver come back from a touchdown deficit to lead 31-24 with 6:29 to play. After both teams exchanged punts, the Raiders again had the ball, with only 1:47 to play and on their own 23 yard line, down a touchdown.
Miraculously, Derek Carr found Zay Jones for a 37-yard reception and then Darren Waller for two more big catches to push the Raiders down field with a quickness. But the bad Rai-duhs found themselves in a 4th and goal from the one yard line and only 27 seconds left. Josh Jacobs ran the ball into the end zone.
That’s when Broncos head coach Vic Fangio made the biggest bonehead call of the night and used a Denver timeout.
Time was winding down and the Raiders didn’t have the right personnel on the field; they were in total disarray and were going to have to take a delay of game penalty.
It allowed the Raiders to get the right personnel in, to get the right play call in, and Jon Gruden dialed up the winning 2-point conversion throw.
“When they called a timeout there, they really kind of helped us because we were scrambling,” Raiders running back Josh Jacobs said after the game.
Fangio explained, “I thought it was important to burn the timeout to be straight with what we were doing.”
Sometimes, on game-deciding plays, coaches will burn a timeout simply to see what the opposing offense is lining up in. Then, the defense can match that personnel and better defend what the offense does.
But, this wasn’t as simple as one of those plays because the Raiders were almost certainly going to take a delay of game penalty and be moved backwards five yards. That would have been huge because it was also 4th down and Las Vegas had to score a touchdown to extend the game or lose.
Though he’s only in his second season as head coach, Fangio has made many boneheaded calls in terms of reviews and deciding to punt instead of going for it on 4th down. He’s also made many mistakes at the ends of halves and games in terms of clock management.
This was the most egregious error he’s made when it comes to clock management as it helped the Raiders win the game.
In the end, the Broncos losing means a higher draft pick. But in the long run, Fangio has to find a way to become a better manager of the clock and his timeouts if the Broncos want to get back to the playoffs again and end this five-year drought.
