Mile High Report
You just witnessed something that has not happened this century in the NFL and may have never happened before.
Stathead.com has a drive finder where you choose the end event (blocked FG) and the drive end time (as the 4th quarter expired). The finder goes back to 2001, but in the 24 seasons for which we have data, no game where a team was going to take the lead on a FG as the clock expired has ended with a blocked FG.
The closest that we have is the game between Dallas and Washington on November 5th 2006. Tied at 19, Dallas got the ball back with 31 seconds to play on their own 39 with two timeouts left. They drove down to the Washington 17 and tried a 34-yard FG with 6 seconds left on the clock. Troy Vincent blocked it and the ball was returned 30 yards. This would have been the end of regulation, as the clocked expired, but there was a facemask on the Cowboys on the returns. Since the half can’t end on a defensive penalty, Washington got a chance to kick a 47-yard FG with their untimed down and hit it to win 22-19.
The blocked kick was similar to what had happened on the previous FG attempt and on the second PAT attempt. The Chiefs had identified Alex Forsyth as the weakest spot on the FG/PAT team and lined up three men over him. They came close to blocking both the 60-yard attempt and the second PAT. However, our coaches did not notice this and it came back to bite them in the rear at the worst possible time.
This ruined what would have been a seminal moment in the career or Bo Nix - on the road, down two with two timeouts left and 5:57 left to play - leading a clock-killing nearly six minute drive that should have won the game as a rookie against the undefeated two-time defending Super Bowl champions. His play on the final drive was superb, as was that of Audric Estime. Estime, who had fumbled twice already in his rookie year in very limited carries was entrusted with carrying the ball six times on that final drive - against stacked boxes that were pretty certain we were going to be running the ball to drain the clock. The Denver Broncos did not want to do what the Bills had done in the playoffs and give Patrick Mahomes too much time to get in position for a game-winning last second FG.
Since his first two games, Bo Nix has completed 64.8% of his passing attempts for 10 TDs and only two INTs (and one was not his fault because it went right through LJ Humphrey’s hands). He has also run the ball for 238 yards and 3 TDs.
Despite taking two sacks last game, Bo Nix still has the 8th best true sack rate - sacks/total dropbacks. Total dropbacks = passing attempts + sacks + scrambles. Bo...
