The Denver Broncos back-and-forth battle with the Washington Commanders came down to the final play in overtime, and the Broncos used a last-second defensive adjustment to do it.
The pivotal play, of course, was the two-point conversion with the Broncos leading, 27-26 that would have won the game in overtime for the Commanders. The Broncos called timeout after the Washington offense lined up, and coach Sean Payton indicated that defensive coordinator Vance Joseph made an adjustment that would send six rushers and leave one unblocked to make a play on Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota.
"We call it a Kodak situation where you have a timeout, the game's going to end, so call the timeout, regroup, collect your thoughts," Payton said in a piece written by Jeff Legwold of ESPN. "The challenge in those plays are designed QB runs, which we were concerned with ... we went from one pressure to another.
"But there's going to be a free rusher if you pressure the way we did it. And you don't know who's going to be the free rusher because the protection ... and so they left Nik [Bonitto] free and the timing and everything was great."
Bonitto broke free from the left side, and was able to block the pass to force the game-ending incompletion. He also knew that receiver Terry McLaurin was running free in the flat, waiting for a simple throw that would allow him to walk into the end zone untouched and win the game.
"I knew he was buying time," the linebacker said. "At that point, I was just trying to make it hard for him to throw the ball, and I ended up knocking it down and we ended up winning the game."
The timeout helped, too. According to Bonitto, it "kind of helped calm us down a little bit, be able to get into what we were able to get into and get a stop."
Mariota knew what was happening with the adjustment, and he said that coming up short was basically a matter of Bonitto making a play.
"The DC, Vance, was doing a good job mixing up zero and showing zero [blitzes] and dropping out,'' said Mariota, who played well above expectations in this one. "And then on the 2 point, he brought zero -- I knew I had to try to get some depth and give our guy a chance. He made a play on it, and that's the way it goes.''