What exactly was Isaiah McKenzie thinking at the end of the half? His attempt to explain

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LANDOVER, Md. — There’s a reason Denver Broncos head coach Vance Joseph said, “We’re going to sit him back down again and let [WR] Jordan Taylor [return punt] it the rest of the season,” after Isaiah McKenzie’s last debacle in Miami.

The kid just can’t help but to fire every bullet he gets directly into one of his own feet.

Unfortunately for Joseph, who didn’t have any interest in playing the rookie again this season, both wide receivers Cody Latimer (thigh) and Emmanuel Sanders (ankle) did not make the trip to Washington D.C. with the team. So McKenzie, who is still holding on to a roster spot, needed to be active.

Unfortunately for McKenzie, he did it again.

With 16 seconds left in the half and the Broncos at the Redskins 31-yard line, Denver—despite being without a timeout—appeared to be poised to get a field goal and cut the Washington lead to four.

Not so fast.

In an attempt to gain a few more yards before the eventual field-goal try, quarterback Brock Osweiler targeted McKenzie on the sideline and, instead of taking the yards and stepping out of bounds, McKenzie turned up field, breaking a few tackles and gaining eight yards before eventually going down in the middle of the field.

It would have been one of McKenzie’s more impressive plays of the season, just one problem—he took far too much time off the clock, didn’t get a first down, and the Broncos weren’t able to get another play off.

After the game, a frustrated McKenzie was honest in recalling what was going through his mind.

“I should have gotten out of bounds,” he explained. “I just caught the ball and mentally was like, ‘Make a play.’ Unfortunately, I didn’t make the right decision… It was just trying to make something happen. Sometimes it costs me, just like that – just like too many drops. It costs the team.”

His coach was equally frustrated.

“Well, he should be aware,” Joseph said. “He was told and that stuff we work on all the time. That’s no excuse at all that he wouldn’t know that. He was told we had no timeouts. It was an outside throw or nothing. We had three points. That’s something he has to know. Unacceptable.”

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It’s not exactly Joseph’s fault that his player made a boneheaded decision but, unfortunately, McKenzie has made so many mistakes at this point that slip-ups like today’s are now a reflection of the coaching staff and the front office. Let’s not pretend that the rookie wouldn’t have already been sent packing if he were a member of many other football teams.

Of course, you want to give your draft picks a chance to develop, but there also has to be a point where you say enough is enough.

The Broncos can give McKenzie as many opportunities as they want—and he does have big-play potential—but they now do it with the understanding that any mistake he makes from here on out is not just a kid messing up, it’s a mistake-prone player being put in the position to make mistakes.

It will be interesting to see if the team is still inclined to put him in those positions as they attempt to get back in the mix next season.