The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Denver Broncos With a last-second field goal block, he secured a 16:14 win on Sunday.
Broncos lineman Alex Forsyth takes most of the blame for the block because the Chiefs determined he “Light on your toes” and vulnerable to a bull run.
After the defeat, film junkies noted that Forsyth had been crushed eight of the team's last ten shotswhich makes it appear that he represented an obvious weakness in protecting the field goal unit.
However, Forsyth's apparent problems may be exaggerated.
Two former Denver players — offensive lineman Tyler Polumbus and tight end Joel Dreessen — came to Forsyth's defense on Twitter/X.
“It's not normal how many times he gets knocked down, but you do get hit on the ass a lot,” Polumbus tweeted. “You have to deal with three guys at the same time playing TE in the FG block. You stretch your arms out like an iron cross, pull your pads low and pray to God that you fall slowly enough that nothing bad happens. A lot of these clips look more normal than you think.”
I'm willing to be judged dead on this take, but these clips aren't as unusual as one would think.
I played this position my entire career and my coach told me, “You will die playing this position. Your goal is to die slowly.”
It's not normal how often he…
— Tyler Polumbus (@Tyler_Polumbus)
Forsyth is the tight end in field goal protection and it is not uncommon (and not necessarily discouraging) for the player to fall backwards at his position. The key is to fall slowly and cause a pileup so the rushers can't break the line.
Well said…playing TE and wing on FG/PAT is a thankless job…especially when 2/3 defenders are attacking gaps at the same time…you have to eat up the load and not fall back so quickly with the flatback that the snap, hold – and kick time is missing is fast enough to beat any block attempt…
— JoelDreessen (@JoelDreessen)
The problem with Forsyth's fall was that he fell so quickly and directly to the ground that the rushers were able to quickly jump over him and block the kick. The lineman should have been “stockier” (something he admitted), but the outrage over his frequent falls may be a bit exaggerated.
Broncos coach Sean Payton also came to Forsyth's defense on Monday.
“It’s not the player’s fault” Payton said. “This affects us all. That’s up to us as coaches. We need to continue to think about, ‘Hey, are we big enough in stature to do this?’ And understand how the rush came.”
Denver is now ready to host the Atlanta Falcons in Week 11. A major storyline this week will be (a) is Forsyth still on the kick protection team and (b) if so, does he fare better in protection against the Falcons? We'll find out on Sunday.
