Special teams were chock-full of chokes in the NFL's wacky Week 10.
The 49ers muffed a punt and missed three field goals before Jake Moody's 44-yarder as time expired beat the Buccaneers 23-20.
In between his third miss and his third make, Moody was confronted on the sideline by teammate Deebo Samuel, who ended up putting his left hand on long snapper Taybor Pepper's throat and shoving him.
San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan said he didn’t see the altercation.
“Guys are frustrated, something probably happened ... brothers scuffle a little bit. I didn’t see any of it, so I don’t know how bad it was,” Shanahan said. “It’s something I’m not too worried about. We’ll fix it, if it hasn’t been fixed already. We’ll fix it on the plane and go back to loving each other (Monday).”
Samuel said he meant no malice and was glad Moody got the shot at redemption.
So was Moody.
“I really, really wanted a chance to redeem myself,” said Moody, who in his first game back after being sidelined three weeks with a sprained ankle, also was good from 28 and 33 yards but missed from 49, 50 and 44 yards.
Moody shrugged off the sideline incident involving Samuel.
“It’s an emotional game. Stuff like that happens all the time. You just move past it. We won, so that’s all that matters," Moody said after the defending NFC champion 49ers (5-4) won consecutive games for the first time this season.
The two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs (9-0) won their 15th consecutive game since last losing a game last Christmas.
That streak was about to end Sunday when the Denver Broncos (5-5), who outplayed the Chiefs in just about every phase, including special teams, were a chip-shot field goal from their first win at Arrowhead Stadium since 2015.
After the Chiefs took their first lead of the afternoon with less than six minutes remaining, Bo Nix converted a trio of third downs to force Andy Reid to burn up his timeouts and keep Patrick Mahomes cooling his cleats on the sideline.
The Broncos reached the Kansas City 14 and Nix took a knee on the right hash mark and Denver coach Sean Payton called a timeout with 1 second remaining.
The snap was good, the hold was good and ...
Linebacker Leo Chenal, who led a wave of Kansas City defenders who burst through the left side of Denver's field goal protection unit, blocked Wil Lutz's 35-yard attempt, preserving K.C.'s stunning 16-14 win.
“It’s complete shock," Chenal said after serving as the hero in the latest of so many great escapes by the Chiefs, who have won their nine games by an average of just 6.4 points. "Not much I can say about it. Glory to Jesus Christ and everything because I was really praying for something to happen.
"That moment is so heavy, there’s a second on the clock and they’re going to kick the field goal. You feel the weight of the moment.”
And Alex Forsyth felt the weight of Chenal and several teammates as he tumbled over backward on the play. The Chiefs said they had noticed earlier in the game a weak link in Denver's protection as they nearly blocked an extra point and a 60-yard field goal attempt in the first half.
“The guy who I was rushing, he was kind of light on his toes a little bit,” Chenal told Pro Football Talk.
Payton said Monday he didn't want Forsyth catching flack for failure.
“This isn’t on the player,” Payton insisted. “This is on all of us. This is on us as coaches. We’ve got to continue to look at, ‘Hey, are we big enough stature-wise there for that?’ And understanding how the rush was coming. It’s disappointing, and yet it’s not something that’s new when a big play is made at the end of the game.”
Payton added, "Credit them for that. They exploited an area that we obviously felt was fixed and stronger, but not fixed enough.”
The Broncos blew a big chance to gain a foothold in the AFC playoff race, but they are still in the seventh and final spot trying to fend off the Cincinnati Bengals and Indianapolis Colts, who are both 4-6 and both of whom have games down the stretch against Denver.
“The sky is not falling,” Payton said.
Nor are heads rolling. Just a crestfallen team trying to make corrections and move on so that the gutwrenching setback doesn't end up defining their season.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Arnie Stapleton, The Associated Press
