Flacco questions calls made by Fangio, staff
Broncos quarterback Joe Flacco was none too happy about some of the strategic decisions his coaching staff made down the stretch of the team’s 15-13 loss to the Colts on Sunday.
He made that quite clear in his postgame news conference, accusing Vic Fangio and company of being “afraid to lose” and “afraid to be aggressive.”
“I just look at it like, we’re now a 2-6 football team and we’re afraid to go for it in a twominute drill, you know?” Flacco told reporters. “Like, who cares if you give the ball back to the guys with 1:40 left? They obviously got the field goal anyway.
“And once again: We’re a 2-6 football team. And it just feels like we’re kind of afraid to lose a game.”
Flacco’s comments referred to the Broncos’ penultimate possession, when they were up 13-12 with 3:37 left. The Broncos called four running plays and one short pass before punting the ball back to the Colts, who subsequently marched downfield and kicked the go-ahead field goal, a 51-yarder by Adam Vinatieri with 22 seconds left.
Flacco appeared particularly frustrated by the decision to run the ball up the middle on third-and-five, which prompted the Colts to use their third timeout but resulted in no gain.
“Who cares if they have a timeout there at the end or not?” Flacco said. “Getting in field-goal range isn’t that tough.”
49ers 51, Panthers 13
Tevin Coleman scored three of his four touchdowns in the first half, rookie Nick Bosa had three sacks to go with an acrobatic interception and host San Francisco remained unbeaten by routing Carolina in its highest-scoring game in 26 years.
The 49ers (7-0) are off to their best start since winning their first 10 games in 1990 but still faced questions because five of those first six victories came against teams that have losing records. But the 49ers delivered perhaps their most complete performance of the season against the Panthers, who had won four in a row.
The 49ers intercepted three passes from Kyle Allen, who came into the game with no interceptions on 153 career passes while winning his first five starts in place of injured starter Cam Newton. They also had seven sacks.
Texans 27, Raiders 24
Deshaun Watson threw for 279 yards and three touchdowns to lift host Houston over Oakland. The Texans won despite seeing star defensive end
J.J. Watt go down in the second quarter. He will be lost for the season with a pectoral-muscle injury.
This is the third time in four seasons that the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year has had a season-ending injury. He missed the last 13 games of 2016 with a back injury that required surgery and played just five games in 2017 before breaking his leg.
Saints 31, Cardinals 9
Drew Brees had visiting Arizona under his surgically repaired and splint-aided thumb, passing for 373 yards and three touchdowns in his first game back as New Orleans won its sixth in a row and snapped the Cardinals’ three-game winning streak.