As the Denver Broncos lined up to take a 21-point field goal deficit late in the third quarter, coach Sean Payton attacked the referees before turning his ire on quarterback Russell Wilson as the team trailed by 42 at Ford on Saturday Field lost in :17 against the Detroit Lions.
Officials gave the Denver offense an offside penalty on fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line, negating a touchdown run by fullback Michael Burton. Payton was clearly upset by the call, which pointed to right guard Quinn Meinerz as the culprit, even though replays appeared to show he was in a legal position.
Meinerz called the penalty “regrettable.”
“I haven't seen the picture or the film to really get an accurate picture of the situation,” he told reporters after the game, “but it's unfortunate. “I'm really trying to play mistake-free football.”
Payton said after the game that any perceived frustration with Wilson was related to the offensive offside call that wiped out the score.
“I was upset about the call,” Payton said after the game. “That's all. Simple.”
Asked what he said to Wilson during the courtside interaction, Payton replied: “Listen, what I talk to Russell about is none of your business.”
Play-by-play broadcaster Kevin Harlan called the interaction between Payton and Wilson “a very animated” and “one-sided discussion.” Wilson, for his part, didn't view his interaction with Payton as a problem.
“Obviously we wanted to score a touchdown on this drive,” Wilson said. “Unfortunately we didn’t do that. But most of all we are frustrated that we didn't score there because we would make it 28:14. Apparently they stopped us in the end. That was the disappointing part. …You want a coach who is passionate. They also want players who are. The most important thing for me is to always concentrate on the next move.”
The angry sequence occurred after two plays in which the Broncos were found to be stopped at the 1-yard line, although replays showed Jaleel McLaughlin's second-down reception and Javonte's third-down run Williams touchdowns could have been . Payton did not challenge either match.
“They were close,” Payton said when asked if he thought about challenging second- or third-down plays. “The problem is that when you start in difficult places it becomes difficult.”
Given Detroit's dominance, the entire chain of events was ultimately just academic, but the spillover of Payton to Wilson, whose fumble in the first quarter proved costly, highlighted the frustration that resulted from a completely missed opportunity to move further into playoff position to advance. The loss drops the Broncos to 7-7 and remains behind the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC West.
A few hours after it was announced that Chiefs coach Andy Reid had been fined $100,000 for publicly criticizing an official's offensive offside call in Kansas City's loss to the Buffalo Bills last week, he declined to to go into more detail about his opinion on the decision against Meinerz.
“It is what it is,” he said.
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(Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)