Denver Broncos: 7 takeaways from tough loss to Titans

2. What was Vic Fangio doing with the timeouts?

The elephant in the room after last night’s loss — what was Vic Fangio planning on doing with his timeouts?

The Titans were at the Broncos’ 29-yard line with 1:45 to go in the fourth-quarter. Even after Stephen Gostkowski had missed four kicks, the Broncos have been in this exact situation before. Last season against the Indianapolis Colts, Adam Vinatieri had missed a field goal and extra point in a low-scoring game but redeemed himself in the end with a game-winning kick.

From the 29, you’re looking at a 46-yard field goal, which is a longer one but not out of any NFL kicker’s range, by any means.

The Broncos had all three timeouts with 1:45 to play, the Titans in scoring range, and the defense was clearly a bit gassed by the Titans’ hurry-up offense.

Fangio sat on his timeouts, and the next play was a big chunk 13-yard run by Derrick Henry for a first-down to the 16 with 1:25 to play. Surely at this point, your head coach would use one of his three timeouts, right?

Apparently not.

Fangio again sat on the timeouts as the clock bled away, the Titans now in chip-shot field goal range.

No timeouts by Vic Fangio, and another nine yards on the ground from Derrick Henry putting the Titans inside the 10. Even for a struggling kicker, there is no reason the expectation should have been for him to miss by the time the kick got inside of 50 yards.

Fangio’s decision to not take any timeouts when it was appropriate to do so cost the Broncos at least one minute of time on the clock to get into field goal range themselves.

There were many fans saying after the game that it shouldn’t have come down to whether or not Fangio used the timeouts based on the way the rest of the game went and all of the other mistakes littered throughout, but even with the other mistakes accounted for, Fangio’s clock management in the fourth quarter is a (major) reason the Broncos did not win the game, or at least have the chance.