ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The National Football League is often called a game of inches.
On Sunday, against the Buffalo Bills, one of the critical plays of the game boiled down to a matter of seconds, and then inches.
As the Denver Broncos faced their first road test of the season in Buffalo, they encountered adversity that they had not experienced all season—playing from behind. In an effort to shift the momentum of the game, Broncos’ head coach Vance Joseph reached deep into his bag of tricks, drawing up a fake punt.
“The idea of the fake punt was we wanted to be within 4th-and-1, 4th-and-2,” Joseph explained on Monday, the day after Denver fell to Buffalo 26-16.