Crucial 4th-Down Decisions The Difference In Denver's Defeat Of The Chargers

Sometimes the obvious decision is the correct one.

In today's modern NFL, that aphorism can get lost as team's employ legions of techies to sift through scads of information in order to create in-depth analysis that is supposed to help coaches make the right decision when they need to make a big decision.

But after parsing the minutiae so hard that it screams, we are often left with 30,000-foot recommendations:

"In X situation, if Team A does Y then they will have a better chance at achieving Z."

That scenario came into play on Sunday at SoFi Stadium with the Denver Broncos facing a fourth-and-goal from the Los Angeles Chargers' one with the game tied 17-17 and 5:10 to play.

The Broncos lined up as if they were going to try to punch it in for a touchdown before coach Sean Payton, who had taken back play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Davis Webb before the game, called timeout. After the break, he sent kicker Will Lutz onto the field to attempt and convert a 19-yard field goal that gave the Broncos a 20-17 lead.

In the booth, CBS analyst Ross Tucker acknowledged that the metrics indicated Payton should have gone for it, before he added, "Maybe I'm old school, but I think that's the right call."

Tucker and his partner Ian Eagle then mentioned that relying on raw analytics - in any game - often means you're ignoring the big-picture context of the situation. For example, how had the running attack been operating? Did your star guard or their stud defensive tackle just enter the blue tent with an injury? Was the game a 42-38 shootout where points were coming easily or a grind-it-out affair that put a premium on adding points?

Sunday's contest definitely fell into the second category - the Broncos would emerge with a hard-fought 23-17 victory - but the way the coaches reacted to a quartet of critical fourth-down decisions in the third and fourth quarters was pivotal.

Oddly, though Payton has built a reputation as a rogueish, throw-caution-to-the-wind gambler in his play-calling, it was the more seemingly buttoned-down Chargers' coach Jim Harbaugh who played riverboat gambler on Sunday.

The Chargers had built a 17-10 lead on Kimani Vidal's 42-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter and then watched Lutz miss a 42-yard FG with 12:08 to play. With the Chargers facing fourth-and-one from their 41 on the subsequent drive, Harbaugh rolled the dice, calling a sneak by quarterback Justin Herbert that was stuffed by Quandarrius Robinson. Five plays later, quarterback Bo Nix found receiver Courtland Sutton for a five-yard TD that knotted the game at 17.

Harbaugh went all-in again after Lutz's go-ahead field goal. On fourth-and-six on the Chargers' 31 with 3:30 to play, Herbert rolled right and threw the ball directly to Broncos' safety Brandon Jones for an interception. The Chargers did have only one timeout remaining at that juncture, but a punt there would've flipped the field and with the two-minute warning still to come, a stop could've given them the ball with enough time to move into position for a game-tying field-goal attempt.

Payton did the obvious thing again with 1:09 remaining when he pointed Lutz back onto the field where he converted a 36-yard FG for a 23-17 lead, meaning the Chargers would, after the kickoff, have to score a TD with no timeouts left, 69 yards to cover and 62 seconds to do it in.

A trio of short passes did move the Chargers to the Denver 39 with three seconds left, but Herbert was not even able to get a Hail Mary pass off as Ja-Quan McMillian came on a corner blitz and sacked him as time expired.