Denver Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett says in retrospect his team should have tried to move the ball forward on a critical fourth-down late in Monday’s loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
“Looking back at it, definitely should have gone for it,” Hackett told reporters Tuesday. “One of those things, you look back at it and say ‘of course we should go for it, we missed the field goal.’ But in that situation we had a plan, we knew 46 was the mark.”
The Broncos advanced the ball to their own 46-yard line on a third-and-14 nine-yard catch by running back Javonte Williams. With five yards to go to the next first down, more than a minute left on the clock and three timeouts in his pocket, Hackett chose to let the clock run down to 20 seconds before he called a timeout and sent out his kicking unit. Brandon McManus then missed the 64-yard field goal attempt, handing the Seahawks a 17-16 win.
Hackett said Tuesday that getting to the 46-yard line was always the goal and that he still had faith in McManus to make a field goal from that distance, despite the fact that only two kickers in the past 60 years have successfully made field goals of that length.
“I think that when you sit there and say, ‘We all know he has a big leg. He’s been kicking for a long time.’ I wanted to give him that opportunity. I wanted to give him a chance to be able to win the game right there,” Hackett said of his kicker Tuesday. “Obviously looking back at it, if you missed the field goal, you’re always going to wish you would have gone for it. If you would have gone for it and not gotten it, you wish you would have given him a chance. So that’s the crazy thing about this game.”
