{"id":24841,"date":"2016-01-28T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T17:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/street-free-agent-shiloh-keo-helped-secure-afc-title-for-the-broncos\/"},"modified":"2016-01-28T09:00:39","modified_gmt":"2016-01-28T17:00:39","slug":"street-free-agent-shiloh-keo-helped-secure-afc-title-for-the-broncos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/street-free-agent-shiloh-keo-helped-secure-afc-title-for-the-broncos\/","title":{"rendered":"Street free agent Shiloh Keo helped secure AFC title for the Broncos"},"content":{"rendered":"

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. <\/strong>\u2014 Safety Shiloh Keo made a bad first impression when he joined Denver\u2019s dominant defense. He\u2019s more than made up for it with big plays that helped the Broncos reach the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

Five days after joining the league\u2019s top-ranked defense, Keo made a big blunder, surrendering the winning touchdown in the Broncos\u2019 stunning 15-12 loss to the Oakland Raiders.<\/p>\n

Keo was a fifth-round pick in 2011 by Houston but hadn\u2019t played in the NFL since 2013. He had to lobby defensive coordinator Wade Phillips for a job on Twitter, and then was pressed into duty right after signing because an injury epidemic leveled the Broncos\u2019 depth at safety.<\/p>\n

He helped them hold the Raiders to a paltry 126 yards in Week 14, including minus-12 yards in the first half. But after Emmanuel Sanders fumbled a punt deep in Denver territory, the nightmare unfolded for the street free agent who had been working out in hopes of signing a futures contract and making a comeback next season.<\/p>\n

On third-and-15 from the 16, David Carr dropped back and threw to tight end Mychal Rivera, who whizzed past Keo and hauled in the game-winning touchdown pass.<\/p>\n

Chided by his coaches, chewed out by his teammates and cursed by fans for not staying back in coverage, Keo vowed to make up for his mistake.<\/p>\n

Has he ever.<\/p>\n

Keo intercepted Philip Rivers with 5 minutes left in the regular season finale, setting up Ronnie Hillman\u2019s game-winning TD in Denver\u2019s 27-20 win that secured the AFC\u2019s top seed.<\/p>\n

He topped that Sunday when he was pressed into crunch-time duty again along with Josh Bush when starting safeties T.J. Ward sprained an ankle and Darian Stewart sprained a knee.<\/p>\n

Keo played 36 snaps on defense and 29 more on special teams.<\/p>\n

He helped cover Rob Gronkowski on Tom Brady\u2019s 2-point conversion attempt, and when Aqib Talib tipped the throw to Julian Edelman into Bradley Roby\u2019s hands, they needed one more big play to seal the AFC title.<\/p>\n

They got it from Keo.<\/p>\n

He lined up right in front of kicker Steve Gostkowski, whose first missed PAT in 524 tries in the first half put them in this precarious position. The kicker had six teammates bunched to his right and four to his left.<\/p>\n

He tried the straight-ahead on-side kick, but Keo sliced in and grabbed it 6 yards downfield, cradling both the football and redemption.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a gutsy play,\u201d coach Gary Kubiak said.<\/p>\n

After he ran off in jubilation, Peyton Manning took a knee, sending the Broncos to their record-tying eighth Super Bowl, including a record seventh under owner Pat Bowlen, who\u2019s battling Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Keo sat in the corner locker, soaking in the moment with linebacker Brandon Marshall.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think about it, I get emotional,\u201d Keo said, thanking both God and the Broncos.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey believed in me, that\u2019s why they brought me here,\u201d Keo said. \u201cThey trust everybody in this locker room. I just hope I can continue to come through and bring home a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keo had a front-row seat to the epic beating Denver\u2019s front-seven put on Brady, who was hit an incredible 23 times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes \u2018No Fly Zone\u2019 easy,\u201d Keo said. \u201cQuarterbacks have less time to throw.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he arrived in Denver, Keo spoke about how blessed he was to join one of the best defenses the NFL has ever seen.<\/p>\n

He worried after his blunder against Oakland that he might have messed up Denver\u2019s mojo.<\/p>\n

Kubiak and Phillips knew Keo from their time together in Houston, and they weren\u2019t about to give up on him so quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s a coverage we should have handled better,\u201d Kubiak said the day after that loss to Oakland. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a couple of young guys back there playing who don\u2019t have a lot of snaps under their belt. … We\u2019ve got confidence in those guys. As we try to get David (Bruton Jr.) healthy and Omar (Bolden) healthy, those guys are going to have to play well for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruton and Bolden both returned but got hurt again and landed on IR. When Stewart and Ward got hurt Sunday, Bush and Keo returned to the spotlight, combining for eight tackles and a pass breakup.<\/p>\n

\u201cJosh knocked a pass in the end zone and Shiloh had a clutch onside recovery where he looked like a shortstop,\u201d Ward said. \u201cSo, I have a lot of respect for those guys coming off the street, learning the system and making plays whenever they\u2019re called upon.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys go down and guys step up.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Keo went low to recover the on-side kick and make amends.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com\/AP_NFL<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow AP Pro Football Writer Arnie Melendrez Stapleton on Twitter: http:\/\/twitter.com\/arniestapleton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. \u2014 Safety Shiloh Keo made a bad first impression when he joined Denver\u2019s dominant defense. He\u2019s more than made up for it with big plays that helped the Broncos reach the Super Bowl. Five days after joining the league\u2019s top-ranked defense, Keo made a big blunder, surrendering the winning touchdown in the Broncos\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24841"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}