Updated Sept. 28, 2026, 1:08 p.m. MT<\/p>\n
The Denver Broncos<\/a> benefited from a controversial pass interference penalty late in Sunday’s 30-26 comeback win<\/a> over the Los Angeles Rams<\/a>.<\/p>\n Facing 3rd-and-6 from L.A.’s 11-yard line with 1:15 remaining in the game, Broncos<\/a> quarterback Bo Nix moved to his right and threw a pass to wide receiver Pat Bryant near the sideline. The throw initially appeared to have been intercepted by Rams<\/a> cornerback Josh Wallace, but officials threw flags and negated the turnover for defensive pass interference (DPI).<\/p>\n Six plays later, Nix scored on a QB sneak to give the Broncos<\/a> a 30-26 lead, and Denver went on to win the game after Talanoa Hufanga intercepted Matthew Stafford’s final throw of the game<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Wallace penalty caused an uproar on social media after NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay suggested it shouldn’t have been DPI (T.J. Ward disagreed<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll look at it, looked like it was a good competitive play from my vantage point, but we will go back and look at it,” L.A. coach Sean McVay said after the game<\/a>. “We\u2019ll see what they say.\u201d<\/p>\n Your fantasy edge starts here Sync your league for custom roster advice, projections, and tools to win your matchups every week.<\/a><\/p>\n The replay clearly shows that Wallace shoved Bryant in the back, throwing off his route:<\/p>\n Mike Florio and Chris Simms on NBC agreed that it was correctly ruled DPI.<\/p>\n Nix appeared to be within the tackle box when he threw the pass, and Wallace’s contact happened beyond five yards past the line of scrimmage. So if the ball hadn’t been thrown when the contact happened, it should have been ruled illegal contact. If the ball was thrown before contact, it was correctly ruled DPI. It’s hard to judge from the replays if the pass had been released or not, but it’s clear that the early contact had a major impact on Bryant’s ability to make a play on the ball.<\/p>\n That said, Bryant definitely played up the contact, dramatically falling to the ground to help draw a flag.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not at that soccer level yet, cause we saw that for a summer,” Payton said when asked if there’s an art to flopping in football, similar to soccer or the NBA. “I think it\u2019s probably south of where the NBA is. I think there\u2019s nothing that anyone works on. If they\u2019re trying to catch a pass or\u2026 It\u2019s not something that\u2019s practiced. I don\u2019t know other than his [Bryant’s] natural reaction, outside of that, there\u2019s really nothing we look at.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rams might feel that they were robbed with a DPI flag on that sequence, but it certainly wasn’t the only play<\/a> that led to L.A.’s loss. After the foul, the Rams had more opportunities to stop Denver’s offense. They also had another drive and got down to the 19-yard line before Stafford threw a game-losing interception, his second costly turnover of the second half. L.A.’s defense allowed Denver’s offense to score 23 second-half points, but the offense still had an opportunity to win the game and squandered it.<\/p>\n Some fans and pundits (and former players<\/a>) have suggested the penalty helps even things out after the no-call<\/a> in the 2018 NFC Championship game cost Payton and the New Orleans Saints<\/a> a trip to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n That no-call was (not) made by the same officiating crew<\/a> that called Sunday’s game in Denver.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, this is years later, so a completely different game, different players,” Payton said when asked about it during his Monday conference call. “I think there were two calls really that I guess that a lot of people were looking at, one over on Pat Bryant\u2019s side and then the one that was a little bit later.<\/p>\n “Each week when these things come up \u2014 the longer you get in this thing, the less you discuss penalties. You just got to go out and play. I\u2019ve yet to see one get changed either way. You hope that when the game\u2019s over with, the season\u2019s over with, you\u2019re on the positive side of the ledger. I focus a little bit more on the penalties that we can control relative to pre-snap, post-snap, those types of things, but that\u2019s really where I sit with it.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a controversial play, and Broncos fans and Rams fans might never agree on the ruling, but it didn’t mark L.A.’s final chance to win, and there’s no question that Wallace arrived early and initiated contact before the ball arrived. Denver and the Rams can sort it out when they meet again (perhaps in the Super Bowl<\/a>).<\/p>\n Social: Follow\u00a0Broncos Wire<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter\/X<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated Sept. 28, 2026, 1:08 p.m. MT The Denver Broncos benefited from a controversial pass interference penalty late…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[202558,64,63,125327,593,356729,85,218769,218770,203469,269618,237307,204525,477354,203477,204514,203146,204883,203149,202991,477353,204521,203139,477355,202561],"class_list":["post-908995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-accessfree","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-co","tag-nfl","tag-sourcebroncos-wire","tag-sports","tag-sstssportsnflbroncos","tag-sstsnbroncos","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagbo-nix","tag-tagdenver","tag-tagdenver-broncos","tag-tagjosh-wallace","tag-taglos-angeles-rams","tag-tagmatthew-stafford","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnba","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagpat-bryant","tag-tagsean-mcvay","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtalanoa-hufanga","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}