Owen Daniels had a good reason for pointing before halftime of Sunday’s AFC championship. (Screenshot, NFL Game Pass)
Owen Daniels, despite what many believed, was not confused. In fact, he was more aware than most at Sports Authority Field on Sunday, following Tom Brady’s kneel-down that ended the second quarter.
As players rushed to the tunnels for the break, the cameras zoomed in on Daniels, the Broncos’ tight end who stood pointing with a perplexed expression on his face.
“I got some comments about that on social media that I looked really confused,” he said with a smile. “Last year in the playoff game against Pittsburgh, we had set up a situation where in that stadium, they exit right behind their bunch. It was set up to where if somehow, some way we get the ball at the end of the half by the tunnel that we go out with time enough where we’re just going to take a knee. We were going to take a knee, act like we were walking off, have them go off, come back, snap the ball and run for a touchdown. That was our plan. New England has always got something up their sleeve. Kind of the same situation. Our guys were kind of exiting and getting away. (Coach Gary Kubiak) was right there doing the same thing, so I was just making sure I was ready to make a tackle. I was making sure they weren’t doing that, because you never know.”
Daniels, well aware of the Patriots’ trickery, was prepared. Not confused.
“I wouldn’t put it past them because we tried to do that same thing,” he said. “That was what I was looking at. I know that’s kind of out there, but hey crazier stuff has happened. I was aware of it just because I had been in that situation last year. We tried to do that to another team, so I was kind of alert to that.”
