Sean Payton takes blame for leverage penalty, reveals biggest regret from Colts game

Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton took the blame after a "leverage" penalty cost the team a win against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 2.

Broncos defensive lineman Dondrea Tillman was penalized for leverage, which nullified Indy's missed 60-yard field goal attempt, allowing the Colts to kick a 45-yard, game-winning field goal to seal a 29-28 victory. Payton said during his conference call with reporters on Monday that blame for the penalty should not fall on Tillman or special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi.

"That's on me in that situation," Payton said. "It's not on Darren, it’s not on Tillman. With a 60-yard field goal attempt, it's different. The alignment got wrong, and the [penalty] call was correct. As a defensive line, you can push down on the back of the center and offensive linemen. You can push down on the back specifically, if you're going to go internally on the guards, you can push down. You can't push to jump.

"So a common block would be to push down with one player, and then to clear jump with another. The alignment got mixed up between Tillman and one of the other tackles. The call was correct. That was leveraging. You can't put your hands to elevate yourself off one of your own guys or off one of the opponent players. My big regret flying home was that’s more for a closer field goal. That's more for a gimme than a 60-yard attempt, and that's on me.”

There was a mix-up with Tillman's positioning and execution, but going up against a low-percentage long field goal attempt, such a play shouldn't have been called. "[W]e should be working a normal rush, a normal interior rush with a 60-yard attempt," Payton said. Hindsight is 20/20.

Denver had several opportunities to close out Sunday's game, but multiple penalties, a missed field goal and quarterback Bo Nix's interception kept the Colts in the game. The Broncos still could have pulled out a win.

"Despite [all the mishaps], in the fourth quarter on the road, we controlled a lot of where we wanted to be relative to that football game, and we didn't capitalize on it," Payton said. "We have to start with ourselves as teachers, as coaches, and look very closely at, ‘How can we improve in these areas?’ And then B, ‘How can we apply it and make sure there's that urgency here in Week 3, Week 4 to clean things up?’ It's hard to sustain success in our league as a yo-yo team, up and down. So that's the race we're in right now.”

Payton and his staff will look to position their players to play a cleaner game when Denver goes on the road to face the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 3. There's a lot of football left to be played, but the Broncos need to make corrections quickly to avoid falling behind in a tough division and conference.

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This article originally appeared on Broncos Wire: NFL: Sean Payton regrets decision on Colts' 60-yard field goal attempt

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