Official’s, coach’s calls go Denver’s way

DENVER – The Denver Broncos were on such a lucky streak, why not roll the dice?

Showing ultimate confidence in his offense and maybe an equal dollop of distrust in his defense, Mike Shanahan went for the 2-point conversion with 29 seconds left and Jay Cutler hit rookie Eddie Royal over the middle to give the Denver Broncos a 39-38 win over San Diego on Sunday.

“Sometimes you have to go with your gut,” Shanahan said. “I just felt like it was a chance for us to put them away. I didn’t want to count on the coin flip. I wanted to do it then, and obviously it worked out.”

It was the third successful 2-point attempt from a team going for the win instead of a tie in the waning seconds of a game since the 2-point conversion was added in 1994, and the first since Tampa Bay beat Washington 36-35 on Mike Allstott’s run on Nov. 13, 2005.

The Chargers (0-2) were both stunned and steamed at their second straight loss in the waning seconds.

The Broncos (2-0) had the ball because an errant whistle had erased Cutler’s lost fumble two plays earlier.

Trailing 38-31, the Broncos reached the 1 but on second-and-goal, Cutler reared back to throw and the ball slipped out of his hands, bounced off the grass and into linebacker Tim Dobbins’ arms.

“Fumble, I think,” acknowledged Cutler, who blamed the slick, new ball.

Referee Ed Hochuli blew his whistle when the ball came out, ruling it an incomplete pass. A review showed that it should have been ruled a fumble. Instant replay rules, however, don’t allow the opponent to gain possession in such situations.

“All we can do to fix it is put the ball at the spot that it hit the ground, which is why we moved it back to the 10-yard line and the down counts and it becomes third down,” Hochuli said afterward.

That explanation wasn’t good enough for Chargers coach Norv Turner.

“On the last play, it was clearly a fumble,” Turner fumed. “Ed came over, the official, and said he blew it. And that’s not acceptable to me. This is a high-level performance game and that’s not acceptable to have a game decided on that play.”

The call the Broncos wanted to talk about wasn’t the referee’s but their coach’s.

“You don’t play this game to tie,” fullback Michael Pittman said. “You play this game to win.”

Two plays after his fumble was overruled, Cutler hit Royal from 4 yards to make it 38-37. With 75,000-plus fans at Invesco Field holding their breath, Cutler again found Royal in the end zone for the winner on the exact same route.

Cutler completed 36 of 50 passes for a career-best 350 yards and four TDs and enjoyed the return of Marshall, who set a franchise record with 18 catches for 166 yards in a magnificent return from his one-game suspension.

Marshall’s receptions were two shy of Terrell Owens’ NFL record of 20 set for San Francisco earlier this decade.