Tyler Polumbus, Former Denver Broncos Offensive Lineman

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Viator, one site, over 300,000 experiences you'll remember. Tyler, appreciate the time. How are you?

Thank you so much for having me. Seven out of 10 tries, he's going to pick up a first down on fourth and five. Over the course of the history of mankind, not Brandon McManus, Brandon McManus is a hell of a kicker. It was a hell of a kick.

You barely missed it wide left. But over the history of mankind, there's two kickers ever that have even lived on this earth that have kicked that kick and successfully made it from 64 yards. So you've got a minute on the clock, you've got three timeouts in the pocket, and you decide that your best chance of winning the game is going with the kick that two human beings that have ever existed have actually accomplished making that field goal, rather than letting the guy who you just gave $161 million fully guaranteed to go out there and do his job against his old foe.

When the staff tell you seven out of 10 tries, he picks up the first down, it's just entirely inexcusable. I know the coach makes a decision, but this is Russ's organization, this is his team now. Do you put any fault on Russell Wilson for not ensuring that coach, what we're doing is wrong, just give me the ball, it's fourth and five, let's go, I'll call a timeout while the clock was starting to tick down?

Man, that's a tough one. I put a little bit on Russ, not a lot on Russ. I was a little bit disappointed that, you know, the timeout did eventually get called after they let about 30 seconds go off the clock. They did call timeout. I was a little bit disappointed that Russ didn't fight for it harder. You can picture the Ravens with Lamar Jackson and Harbaugh last year, what was that against the Chiefs, I think, where, you know, they kind of had that look with one another and they had the conversation.

They went for it on fourth and long and they got it. A little bit disappointed that Russ didn't fight for it. You have to default to your coach's decision. He's the head coach.

He makes those decisions. You can't go out there with the offense when he wants the field goal team out there. But, you know, I played with Peyton Manning. I'm having a hard time picturing Peyton Manning. Have a coach, allow a coach to take the ball out of his hands in that situation. So, a little bit disappointed that I didn't see a bigger fight out of Russell in that particular circumstance.

Tyler Columbus here with us. As far as Nathaniel Hackett, I know everyone's going to be losing their minds today and thinking that he's going to be this awful coach and I still don't know what he can be even though the hire didn't overly excite me. But now they have Russell Wilson, which is the most important part. Does he need to now win back this locker room?

Because there's a lot of noise right here and you wonder how much of that noise then goes into the locker room and players start doubting this guy. Yeah, you know, as a young coach, you're going to make mistakes. And the likelihood of Hackett losing a game for the Broncos this year was pretty high. You're never as good in your first year on the job as you are in year five.

So these things were going to come. It was just so frustrating that it came with the last play of the first game of the season in such an obvious way. I don't think this is an end-all for Nathaniel Hackett. You've got an opportunity as a coach to go step up in front of your team and say, fellas, my bad.

I'd like to do that one over. We got Russ. I got all the faith in the world in him. And hey, Brandon, I got all the faith in you too, man.

You barely missed that kick. But hindsight, 20-20, I want to lean towards being a little bit more aggressive with my offense. But I think it takes a moment of being authentic because if you're not transparent with your guys, they'll look through that and then they'll start to doubt. They'll start to wonder. If you don't admit that you would like a do-over on it, then you're in that locker room and you're like, do I trust this guy or not?

Does he even know that he made a bad decision? Tyler Columbus here with us. What were your expectations for this team headed into this year, Tyler? Sneak into the playoffs and that's about it.

Nothing crazy. I didn't expect them to go compete for an AFC championship. I didn't expect them to go win the AFC West. But you got Russell Wilson and that should equate to about 11 wins. And that's probably the magic number in today's game with 17 games. You got to get to about 11 wins.

That's what they should be. Now you put yourself in a hole, though. You got to win your home games. You got to split on the road. And this was a game that you should have won on the road. Now you got to find one down the road that, all right, you're going to win one in Kansas City, you're going to win one in Los Angeles.

Where are you going to pick up an extra game on the road? That's a challenge they have. But be a playoff team and I think most people will say you accomplished what you needed to this year.

And then next year, go on a run. Well, that's the thing. That's why this loss, even with the buffoonery that we saw at the end of the game, is really demoralizing if you're a Broncos fan. It's because any loss this year, if you play in the AFC West, it feels like two losses just because of how damn good this division is supposed to be. Yeah, and actually this might be a very weird year in which what happens outside the AFC West, it might actually matter more than what happens inside of it.

I would imagine you're going to see a lot of teams kind of cannibalize themselves. I think L.A. will beat the Raiders. Well, we just saw that. Chargers just beat them. But I think the Raiders will beat the Chargers. You know, Kansas City will probably drop one. Denver will drop one.

They're going to beat up on one another. So what you do outside of the AFC West, crazy to even say it, it actually might matter more this year. What does Nathaniel Hackett need to do to keep his job for next year? Is he at danger if this year they don't make the playoffs of him losing his job?

Because we all know, Tyler, Sean Payton's available and he probably wants to get back into the game. And that's just where my mind went after last night. Well, you never know with new ownership.

So that's always a little bit. Everybody's uneasy when you've got a new boss. Not a good feeling when your old boss is not in the building. But Hackett's in good graces. He was hired without really any boss in the building.

But things are so fresh. The probability of him losing his job seems insanely low to me. You're going to want to see this thing through. George Payton's done a great job as a GM. All the guys that he's drafted and brought in free agency, they've all been great. You got the quarterback figured out.

You're likely going to want to give it a chance to succeed. So outside of Hackett having a disastrous year winning four or five games, I think he's back. All but no matter what happens this season. You just hosted a show in Denver, your afternoon drive program. What was the fan reaction today?

Yeah, man. Upset. It's the same conversation we were having last year with Vic Fangio. Head coach blew it. Head coach had an opportunity with clock management. It got too big for him in that particular moment.

It shouldn't have come down to it. Hackett said that today and he's right. They did have two trips down there into the red zone where they're on the one yard line. They fumbled twice. Melvin Gordon fumbled once. Chavonte Williams fumbled another time. You score on either one of those possessions. You had to loan both of them like you should on the one yard line. You're running away with that game and you're not trying to kick a 64 yarder.

So frustrating. A lot of good things in the game. Russell Wilson looked good. Didn't look great. He looked good though.

He looked fine. Offense, they put up a lot of yardage. And then on the defensive side, early struggles shutting down Geno Smith, as hard as that might sound, in the first half. In the second half they did.

And they did shut him down. So a lot of good things out of that game that just ends with nothing but frustration because nobody can wrap their minds around why you thought a 64 yarder gave you the best opportunity to win the game. Yeah. Is the Geno Smith first half success, is that just rust?

Like what is that? Because going into this year we knew about the Broncos. They have a good defense on paper.

They should. They got two decent pass rushers in Randy Gregory and Bradley Chubb. Although neither one of them seemed to be able to stay on the field over the course of their career. You've got one of the best safeties in the game in Justin Simmons. Cream Jackson is a veteran back there. Your linebackers are pretty weak. But overall it should be a top 10-ish defense in just about every single category. That's what the expectations were going into the season.

So definitely some early concern when you saw Geno Smith moving the ball with ease in the first half. Wrap it up with Tyler Palumbis. Who wins this division this year in your opinion? I'm going with the Chiefs until it's not the Chiefs. And especially after what happened this weekend. The entire NFL looked bad. You saw upsets all over the place. You saw teams win that you never thought could. And then you saw the Chiefs go out there and just lay a butt whipping down. You had two teams that looked dominant. You had the Bills and you had the Chiefs. So based off the evidence that we've got, the Chiefs are the top dog until they're not. You got Andy Reid, the Hall of Fame coach. And you got Patrick Mahomes.

They're the ones to beat until somebody else is sitting on top. Were you just screaming at your TV last night when that clock was winding down and you started to realize that they were going to kick the field goal there for 64 yards? I just couldn't even believe what I was watching.

I mean, could not believe it. I actually played for both the Seahawks and the Broncos. And my son was born when I was playing in Seattle. He's a diehard Seahawks fan. We had about half the house rooting for the Seahawks. We had about half the house rooting for the Broncos. My job tends to go with the Denver Broncos.

When the Broncos play well, ratings are usually pretty good. So I was rooting for my job if I was rooting for anybody. So when we saw that happening, I mean, yeah, I'm just screaming at the top of my lungs. Call timeout. Call timeout.

What are you doing? And then even after they called the timeout, I really thought even after that timeout, you let 30, 40 seconds go off the clock. They're still going to go out there and try to pick up a first down because as good as Brandon McManus is, you got to get within 56, 57 yards to make it realistic. Yeah.

I went to college with Brandon McManus. Like, I know how good of a leg that guy has. If it's 10 seconds left, I'm okay with the decision. But with over a minute left, it's just Jackassery.

No, I mean, hey, look, you got 10 seconds left. I don't care if it's a 65 yarder. I don't care if it's a 70 yarder. Pick the field goal. It's your only shot.

But you had other options. You had three timeouts in your pocket and you had Russell Wilson when the stats tell you seven out of 10 tries, he's going to pick up the first down on fourth and five. Just totally inexcusable. Last thing I'll ask you, because I know you got to run Tyler Columbus here with the Super Bowl 50 champion with the Broncos, also played for the Seattle Seahawks, spent eight years in the league. I just had KJ Wright on about an hour ago and he said he was not surprised that the Seahawks fans booed Russell Wilson before the game. I thought you would cheer him before the game and then during the game he's the enemy. You clearly boo him. Did the boos catch you by surprise?

No, no, definitely not. If you've been following what's coming out of Seattle, Russell is the bad guy. I mean, the Seahawks organization has definitely convinced the fan base that Russell is the bad guy. He demanded the trade.

He wanted out of there. And the Seahawks fans, that is a good fan base. That is the toughest place to play in the NFL. Not surprised by the boos.

I'll give you one thing, even though I'm on the way out the door and I'm sorry I do have to go. I'm coaching a flag football team. But the one thing that did surprise me, not the boos, if you look at all the teammates of Russell Wilson from the Seahawks on that Super Bowl team that they had, go look at their Twitter account. Read what Richard Sherman is writing. Read what Cam Chancellor was writing. Read what Doug Baldwin was writing. These guys, they don't just not like Russell Wilson. They hate Russell Wilson. It's crazy to see the type of anchor they had towards him.

So that's the part, if you want to go down a wormhole, that's the part that surprised me. What's the pregame speech tonight for the flag football game? Well, it's just practice for tonight. Sorry, I'm not sure if I said game, but we've got practice tonight. We've got a big game coming up this weekend. And fellas, we don't want to go out there and drop a dumb one like the Broncos did. We'll beat them that weekend, but we've got to get prepared. Yeah, don't be kicking any 64-yard field goals, all right? We appreciate it. That's right. All right, buddy.

We'll talk to them. Viator is the world's leading travel experience marketplace, offering everything from simple tours to extreme adventures and all the niche, interesting stuff in between. Extensive options, ease of selection and flexibility at your fingertips help make sure your time is wonderfully spent. Viator is the place to go to book experiences that will create long-lasting moments that make lifetime memories. And Viator has over 300,000 bookable experiences to choose from in over 190 countries. In fact, just last year, Viator helped my family put together this amazing adventure on the island of Kona.

Swimming with the manta rays, trying to avoid the barracudas, whatever your wildest dreams. If you can imagine it, Viator probably has an experience just for you. Download the Viator app now and use code Viator10 for 10% off your first booking in Viator's world of wonderful experiences. Viator. One site, over 300,000 experiences you'll remember.