Hackett's head-scratcher caps wild Week 1 – Arkansas Online
Denver Broncos Coach Nathaniel Hackett found himself in no man’s land, and he assured himself a spot in NFL purgatory with a head-scratcher of a decision that turned his head coaching debut into a dud and ruined Russell Wilson’s homecoming.
Trailing the Seattle Seahawks 17-16 on Monday night, the Broncos crossed midfield with just over a minute left when Javonte Williams caught a short pass from Wilson and charged his way to the Seattle 46.
That put Denver facing fourth down just barely in field-goal range but 5 yards shy of the first-down marker.
Isn’t this why the Broncos sent three players and five picks to Seattle six months ago for Wilson, whom they signed to a megamillion-dollar extension?
“It put us in that weird spot there because we were in the field-goal range, but we were in that fourth-down situation,” Hackett said. “Didn’t think we were going to get that many yards, so I thought it was a great job by Javonte. We just made the decision we wanted to take our shot there on that one.”
Hackett decided to take the ball out of his $296 million man’s hands and place his trust in a kicker who is now 1 for 8 from 60-plus yards in his career after Brandon McManus hooked a 64-yard attempt that would been the second-longest field goal in NFL history.
Hackett called timeout with 20 seconds left after letting 43 seconds burn off the clock, then sent McManus out, capping a weekend full of special teams bloopers, bungles and blunders.
Hackett’s call left Troy Aikman and Joe Buck stumped in their “Monday Night Football” booth debut.
“I was surprised by it,” Aikman said. “We were caught off guard with the timeout. Like everybody, we couldn’t quite understand why they were letting so much time come off the clock.”
Summoning Wilson to the sideline showed “that he trusted McManus’ leg more than he trusted Russell Wilson being able to convert there on fourth down,” Aikman argued. “And that will be heavily dissected as we move through the week and it won’t sit well with Russell Wilson.”
Hackett had all three timeouts and 63 seconds left when Williams was tackled 5 yards shy of the first down.
“When they finally do call the timeout with one second left on the play clock and while we’re looking into this camera, they switch and they bring their field-goal team on and it was shocking [to] look down and there’s McManus,” Buck said.
“And they didn’t have to try this desperate field goal. And this is why you make a deal to get Russell Wilson, in my estimation.”
To go for it on fourth-and-5 and at least get McManus closer to a higher-percentage field-goal attempt.
It was a strange ending to a wild opening weekend during which kickers, punters, long snappers and holders made an unusual amount of head-turning plays, both good and bad.
New Orleans Saints kicker Wil Lutz kicked a 51-yard field goal with 19 seconds left to beat Atlanta and Cleveland Browns rookie Code York nailed a 58-yarder with 8 seconds left against Carolina to deny Baker Mayfield’s bid for vengeance.
Randy Bullock pushed a 47-yard field goal wide left as time expired, allowing the New York Giants to escape with a win over Tennessee, and the Indianapolis Colts’ Rodrigo Blankenship missed a 42-yard try with 2 minutes left in overtime, resulting in a tie with the Houston Texans.
The wildest and wackiest of games in Week 1 was the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 23-20 win at Cincinnati in a game that featured goof-ups by a backup long snapper, two missed field goals and a blocked extra point that sent the game into overtime, where Chris Boswell kicked a 53-yarder as time expired.
Elsewhere, Kansas City safety Justin “Case” Reid, who was an emergency kicker at Stanford, made one of two extra points and blasted a kickoff through the back of the end zone for a touchback before kicker Harrison Butker returned from a rolled ankle in the Chiefs’ rout of Arizon.
Tampa Bay punter Jake Camarda kicked the ball off the giant video board hanging high over the field at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium, and at swampy Soldier Field, Chicago Bears holder Trenton Gill was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for taking a towel onto the field and trying to dry the kicking area before a field goal try.
Hackett’s head-scratcher topped all of those, and he stuck with his decision even after McManus missed badly on a field goal try that didn’t count because Seattle called timeout.
“I was happy he got that one out of the way,” Hackett said. “I thought he had plenty of distance on that one and just thought that we were going to be able to make that. I have confidence in him, and if we have to put him in that situation again, I think he’ll be able to make it.”
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