2. Blocked Punt Response? An Interception!
While Denver is clearly not the same team we’ve grown accustomed to seeing them be the past couple seasons, they still have notable talent, especially on defense. That unit has taken a step back in 2017 for sure (12th in Football Outsiders’ Defensive DVOA coming into Week 11; No. 1 in the same metric in both 2015 and 2016), but the unit would prove to still be plenty challenging for a Cincinnati offense which has struggled at sustaining drives throughout 2017.
In this game alone, Cincinnati would end up punting eight times; on the season, their 56 on the season are only one behind the league-leading total. With all these drives by them ending with a change of possession, the odds of something going wrong elevates significantly. That wrong came to pass on their first drive of the game.
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After yet another drive ended quickly (Cincinnati averages the least number of plays per drive this season, with 5.03), the punt unit came out. Facing the NFL’s lowest Special Teams DVOA unit in the Broncos, one would’ve thought it’d just be another normal kick to the opposition.
Unfortunately for Cincinnati, that was not the case; Denver’s Shaquil Barrett busted through the protection and knocked the punt down, where his teammate Will Parks recovered it. The ordeal gave Denver the ball at the Cincinnati 29, leaving the Broncos in excellent field position with a chance to get immediate points.
The Bengals wouldn’t see their special teams blunder come to haunt them, however. On a third-and-4 at the Cincinnati 5-yard line, Brock Osweiler tossed what he hoped would be a touchdown towards the endzone. Instead of Cody Latimer catching the ball though, it ended up being Dre Kirkpatrick. The Cincinnati cornerback would subsequently run the ball from one end of the field to the other, not only eliminating the mistake on the punt and saving a score, but setting up a score for his own team.
With the interception (and eventual Cincinnati score off of it) the Bengals came away with what was essentially a 14-point swing on the scoreboard — all coming right on the heels of a potential game-altering special teams gaffe.
There was still plenty of game to be played at this point (in fact, the play was worth less than three percentage points in ESPN’s win expectancy model), but this was clearly an impactful moment. Cincinnati would go on to lose the time of possession battle by over nine minutes and not even pick up 200 yards of offense on the afternoon; without this strong response to their punt mishap, they aren’t in position to force Denver’s own inept offense to need a long drive to win the game at the end.