SAN FRANCISCO — “Kick the f—ing field goal.”

Chris Simms, the former Denver Broncos backup quarterback turned NBC Sports analyst, couldn’t put it more succinctly than that when discussing the failed fourth-down call that shook the NFL to its foundation and altered the course of the AFC Championship Game.

Sean Payton’s decision — both to go for it and then his play call — continues to echo through the chaos and hubbub leading up to Super Bowl LX.

To opt for a Wil Lutz field-goal attempt from 32 yards or to successfully convert the fourth down would have potentially set the Broncos on a path to be here in the San Francisco Bay Area, to where all the banners and signage and souvenir jerseys and t-shirts and tchotchkes that can be stretched from here to San Diego and back would have Broncos logos, not flying Elvii.

Instead, the Broncos on hand were consigned to the Pro Bowl Games, taking place in a glorified warehouse. As if that downgraded event could be any more of a farce, it found a new low Tuesday night.

One can point to myriad moments in the Broncos’ AFC Championship Game loss — the strip-sack fumble, Lutz’s end-of-first half miss, the blocked field-goal attempt in the snow that followed an apparent poor pre-snap spot, a controversial fourth-and-short mark that favored the Patriots in the third quarter, yada yada.

But here in the Bay Area, when the topic of the 10-7 defeat comes up, the first topic broached from most observers beyond the Rocky Mountain region is the fourth down. Like it or not, that’s the moment that remains as frozen as the afternoon itself.

Over a week later, the decision to go for it remained “shocking” to Simms.

“You got a defense you’re playing at home, you can go up two scores with a backup quarterback, and you’re playing an offense in New England that hasn’t been good in like four weeks,” Simms said.

“And they’re going to feel the pressure down 10-0 on the road, and you let them off the hook. And the game flipped from that point on. Talking about momentum again, right?

“And that’s what I think. There’s no formula for that, and that’s where I think it has to be reevaluated a little bit.

 

 

But Simms’ decision would have been the same even if he HAD Nix at his disposal. The absence of the quarterback with whom the Broncos compiled a 25-11 record over the last two seasons made no impact in his mind.

“Let’s keep applying the pressure, no matter what, even if Bo Nix is there,” Simms said.

“Here’s the thing I didn’t love about it: One, the play was basic. Everybody runs that, has that play in the first week of training camp, I was like, ‘Man, this is Sean Payton’s AFC Championship, go-for-it, I-gotta-make-it-happen play?’ I was shocked by that. [Patriots coach Mike] Vrabel played a defense that most people don’t play in that situation. He played Tampa 2 on 4th-and-1. Right? So, Vrabel’s coaching is special.

“… But, yeah, no, even if Bo Nix was there, and you can ask my NBC friends all here, I am the one that’s always there, ‘Kick the f—ing field goal.’”

Truth is, Simms probably wasn’t the only one saying it. A fair percentage of Broncos Country probably hollered those words toward their flat screens, too. Maybe a not-insignificant number of the 76,188 who crammed into Empower Field at Mile High on that frigid afternoon did, as well.

BEYOND THE BRONCOS, FOURTH-DOWN AGGRESSION BOTHERS SIMMS

In general, Simms is skeptical of the current trend of going for it more often than before.

“Too much of the crystal ball is being like, ‘I know how the game going to play out.’ Well, no, it didn’t play out that way,” Simms said. “It’s a field-goal type of game. And you passed up three opportunities already to kick a field goal, right? We saw the Bears do it in the Rams playoff game a little bit. I mean, I would argue the Detroit Lions would have been in the Super Bowl against Kansas City a few years ago if [they] just kicked a field goal and went up by 17 late in the third quarter.

“So those are things where again, I just look at it and go, ‘Play the game for what it is, what you’re seeing right now, not what you think it might be at one moment later on down the road,’ because you don’t know that.

“And also what I do think gets lost in translation — [and] as a quarterback, I can speak to: We drive down the field, 11-play drive, man. It was a good drive. We got to the 6- or 8-yard line and we go for it on fourth down [and fail]. We’re walking off the field. We didn’t get the first down. It’s deflating. Is there a formula in all these people’s things about going for it, about how that does to your sideline emotionally, where one sideline goes, ‘Man, we just got a good drive and we got nothing,’ and the other sideline’s going, ‘Yeah, let’s go!’

“… I mean, there’s momentum and things there and psychology that I think are being missed a little bit in these situations.”

In the AFC Championship Game, New England didn’t immediately seize momentum after the fourth-down stop; the Patriots gained one first down and subsequently punted. Only after Stidham’s ill-considered push pass on the subsequent Broncos series did the game truly turn like milk left on a countertop for a month.

But the three points left unclaimed changed the game. Denver never scored again. And for this week and beyond, the Broncos are left with the loser’s lament of not only what might have been, but how much of it was in their hands.