National Football League playoff picture: Broncos in with OT win

Denver’s Brock Osweiler and Cincinnati’s AJ McCarron meet on the field after the Broncos’ 20-17 overtime win Monday night.

Denver forced a fumble by Cincinnati quarterback AJ McCarron to win 20-17 in overtime.

The Denver Broncos were able to wrap up a playoff berth by outlasting Cincinnati in a matchup of AFC division leaders.

Starter-in-waiting Osweiler finished 27-of-39 for 299 yards with one touchdown pass and no interceptions in front of a crowd of 76,000 at Sports Authority Field. And so was the Bengals’ best chance for a play-off bye.

It was just the big play Ware’s been looking for ever since missing a month with a bad back.

The Broncos improve to11-4 and clinch their fifth consecutive playoff berth while denying the Bengals, also 11-4, their first road win on a Monday night since 1990 and a chance to lock up at least the #2 spot in the AFC and a first-round bye.

Broncos coach Gary Kubiak has already confirmed that Osweiler will start against the Chargers in the final game of the regular season. “Tonight was about this football team and what this football team went out there and did was truly special”.

All in all, the Broncos (11-4) are in the playoffs for the 22nd time in their 56-year franchise history.

The relieved Bengals called tails but the coin landed heads. It’s time to play the best second half we’ve played all year, ‘ and we did that tonight.

“That’s a insane spectrum of possibilities”, Denver tight end Owen Daniels said. And that adjustment of pace has now worked with two quarterbacks: Peyton Manning and Osweiler.

There was an incompletion on first down the Broncos felt should have been a fumble by McCarron, with Derek Wolfe recovering the ball as it skittered downfield, but a review upheld the ruling. That scenario was in play early on as the Bengals sprinted to a 14-0 lead. Sanders had a 35-yard reception to the Bengals’ 21, but the drive stalled after a second-down sack of Osweiler by defensive end Carlos Dunlap, leading to the field goal.

The Bengals went 80 yards in 15 plays to open the game, with McCarron hitting A.J. Green for a 5-yard touchdown.

Brandon McManus’s 23-yard field goal with 18 seconds left in the first half were the first points Denver put on the board. You do things to know and remember when they come about later in the season.

The Bengals responded and tied the contest back up on a 52-yard Mike Nugent field goal, the Broncos crossed the fifty yard line once again and were driving while eating up precious clock.

The Broncos twice drove deep into Cincinnati territory in the final minutes of regulation only to come away empty. A zone play on which safety Reggie Nelson says he should have made the tackle. With Eifert set to miss a second straight game due to a concussion and Cincinnati’s ground game struggling the past two weeks, McCarron will have his hands full with the league’s top-ranked defense. They reached the Bengals 24 before McManus missed, sending it into overtime. The Broncos yield the fewest yards in the league – they’re ranked No. 1 against both the run and the pass – and the Bengals allow the fewest points (263).

Trailing 14-3, they scored in the third quarter for the first time since November 8. Manziel spent two games on the bench before being re-inserted into the starting lineup.