It is hard to believe a head coach with nearly two decades of NFL experience could almost miss a game-altering call. Yet, 62-year-old Sean Payton found himself on the brink of a massive sideline blunder during Denver’s Week 9 clash against Carolina. The Broncos ultimately scraped by with a 26-21 win, but had Denver let one unflagged play slip by, their night would have ended in disaster. Instead, a late challenge flag turned a near-disaster into a crucial interception, and as it turns out, Payton has a quick-thinking Broncos player to thank.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“Yeah, so I’m looking up on the jumbotron,” Cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian told KOA 850 AM & 94.1 FM. “I think they were trying to hurry up, and I noticed he caught the ball. Like, it hit off the guy’s hand, and it bounced up. Dev(on Key) caught the ball. Nobody noticed it. So I’m like, ‘He caught the ball, VJ (Vance Joseph, Denver’s defensive coordinator)! He caught the ball!’
“Then he went to Sean, and Sean was like, ‘What? He caught it?’ And he threw the flag, really late. They already running the play.”
While McMillian’s sideline shouting triggered the initial alarm, the final push came from high above the field. Up in the booth, Denver’s director of game management, Evan Rothstein, was already dissecting the replay. Responsible for split-second challenge decisions, Rothstein didn’t hesitate. Within seconds, his voice boomed through Payton’s headset: “Challenge it!”
This happened when the Panthers were leading 14-13 in the third quarter, and they were on a first-and-goal play from the Broncos’ 1-yard line. Carolina quarterback Bryce Young tried to throw a pass to tight end Tommy Tremble in the end zone, but he collided with Broncos linebacker Justin Strnad while trying to catch it. It was ruled an incompletion.
And sure enough, Payton threw the challenge flag. The incompletion was reviewed after the ensuing Chicago play was already completed. What mattered here was the time. According to the league, Denver was safe.
“Replay can get involved to make sure that the head coach throws his challenge flag prior to the next snap,” NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth said in a pool report. “We were actually able to use angles to show that the flag was out prior to the ball being snapped, and so we permitted the challenge.”
On review, the ball can be seen getting knocked off Tremble’s arm and going into safety Devon Key’s hands. Since it didn’t touch the ground, the play ended up being an interception. Key instinctively wanted to return it straight out of the end zone, but the whistle had already blown the play dead. Instantly, Bank of America Stadium erupted. Panthers fans flooded the stadium’s big screens, booing furiously and convinced that linebacker Justin Strnad had committed uncalled pass interference before the catch.
Tremble later admitted he thought officials blew their whistles to sort out a flag. Yet, NFL replay rules are unyielding: officials cannot enforce penalties that were never called on the field. The missed foul vanished, but the turnover stood, instantly morphing into a life-saving lifeline for the Broncos as they marched down the field for a momentum-shifting touchdown on the very next drive.
Payton credited Rothstein for the challenge initiated.
“I just gave Evan a game ball,” Payton said. “That was a hard one for any of us to see and my concern was were they able, was anyone able, to see I threw it before the play was snapped. Fortunately, New York can … that one, that’s the first I can ever recall like that, ever, that was that close.”
What could have been a potential 21-13 lead, or at least a field goal from the Panthers, turned into a bitter defeat. Young said that his team should “never be relying on the refs” after the game. However, Carolina head coach Dave Canales didn’t argue with the officials’ call.
“They confirmed that [Payton] did throw the challenge flag before we did snap the ball on that very next play,” Canales said. “So, I’ve got to go from their word. I don’t have that at my disposal but they did confirm it that he got the flag out.”
All in all, the game ended with a controversial call to talk about among the footballing world, with Key showing confidence in his team during these moments, saying that the Broncos “never flinch when those situations are upon us.”
Though the interception stood, the Panthers refused to go away quietly, launching one final late comeback attempt. But Denver’s defense put an emphatic end to the drama when Nik Bonitto dragged down Bryce Young for a game-sealing sack. The clutch stop secured the 26-21 victory, marking Denver’s fifth straight win and cementing their spot atop the AFC West at 7-2 as they head into a well-earned bye week.
McMillian is in the middle of a standout fifth season while playing on a restricted free-agent tender. After pulling off a split-second observation that effectively saved Denver’s game, the Broncos’ front office might just be taking a much closer look at his long-term future in Mile High.