With just over two minutes left to play on Sunday, the Broncos still had a chance to come back and beat the Colts after a short Frank Gore run left the Colts with a third down opportunity.
That third down turned into a first down when cornerback Aqib Talib was penalized for unnecessary roughness, however. Colts tight end Dwayne Allen and Broncos linebacker Von Miller were jawing at the end of the play and Talib interjected himself into the fray by poking Allen in the eye, drawing a penalty.
“You guys ever played football? You ever lost, at the end of the game? If you can remember back at how that feels, that’s how I felt,” Talib said, via the Denver Post. “I was just mad, man. It was the heat of the moment. “You think I play football to poke people in the eye? It was an honest mistake. From my angle, I see [Allen] head butt Von a little bit. I went over to poke his head, and I think my hand slipped and hit his face. He acted like he got in an 18-passenger car wreck. I guess that’s what type of guy he is.”
A real wise guy, perhaps?
Talib got penalized again a bit later for unsportsmanlike conduct and was less understanding of the reasons why he was penalized on that play.
“I was just clapping my hands. Everybody in the stadium was clapping their hands. I was 10 yards away from the guy, clapping my hands. He didn’t like it. He threw a flag,” Talib said. “A hard clap. Like there’s something in the rule book for too hard of a clap. A too-hard-of-a-clap flag? That’s the one I got.”
The first penalty was the one that really hurt the Broncos on Sunday afternoon and it was definitely one that Talib, emotional or not, should have been able to avoid.