Sandwiched between the obvious question of whether Broncos coach Gary Kubiak shouldn’t have tried a 62-yard field goal in overtime to the less-obvious question of whether someone should have told receiver Bennie Fowler to go down instead of score is the less-obvious-than-it-should-have-been question of whether the Broncos should have gone for two after Fowler scored.
Two weeks earlier, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made waves by scoring a six-pointer against the Patriots that put Seattle ahead by seven with 4:24 left in regulation. In lieu of taking the extra point and stretching the margin to eight, Carroll opted to go for two, delivering what would have been a two-score death blow.
The Seahawks failed, which gave the Patriots a chance to force overtime with a touchdown and a 33-yard kick through the uprights. (New England got to the doorstep of the end zone, but couldn’t score.)
On Sunday night, the Broncos scored a touchdown while already leading by one with three minutes on the clock. Kubiak sent out kicker Brandon McManus without hesitation, taking the one point and stretching the lead to eight. Perhaps the question about going for two didn’t come up because the Broncos have a championship-caliber defense that was fully healthy again for the first time in weeks on Sunday night. Surely, the neo-Orange Crush could slam the door on the Chiefs driving the length of the field with 180 seconds and no time outs for a touchdown and a two-pointer.
But the defense failed to keep the Chiefs from scoring six and then two. Which means that, the next time the Broncos find themselves up by seven after scoring six late in a given game, maybe they should just go for two.
More broadly, any team in that situation needs to at least consider going for two and going up by nine. If even the best defense in the NFL can fail to seal the deal in those circumstances, every other defense can, too.