The Denver Broncos finally broke their four-game losing streak on Sunday in a 17-10 win over the Washington Football Team, but they nearly gave the game away late.
“Whatever worst word you can use to describe it, you can use it to describe it,” Broncos head coach Vic Fangio said of his team’s final drive. “It was awful. It was a terrible, terrible series of downs for us.”
First, rookie running back Javonte Williams fumbled the ball. Then, with no one open on a surprising pass play, Teddy Bridgewater didn’t just slide and stay in bounds to run the clock, he threw the ball incomplete. That stopped the clock for the visitors, only for Denver to run the ball and have Melvin Gordon fumble it away on third down.
Just like that, with 21 seconds left, the Football Team needed a mere 24 yards to score and tie or win the game. Luckily for Denver, the defense held as Malik Reed recorded his second sack of the day, but it was an almost unbelievable way to end the game on offense.
Especially on the day when Peyton Manning was honored as a Ring of Fame member.
However, these Broncos have been bumbling on offense for four straight weeks.
After starting 3-0, the Broncos fell to 3-4 and were bullied by basically every opponent along the way. Luckily, they got a bad Washington team at home on Sunday and took advantage.
The Broncos bad offense — led by play-caller Pat Shurmur — continually makes head-scratching decisions all the time. Like that pass play call on second down of the final drive. Why not just run it there and force Washington to burn a timeout?
Or the uninventive calls which force the quarterback to check down short of the sticks. And why have the Broncos stopped going deep after doing so well early on in the season?
No matter how one looks at it, the Denver Broncos have disappointed this season. Yes, they’re 4-4, finally ending their four-game losing skid. That’s great. But they looked like world-beaters early, and completely lost on both sides of the ball more lately.
A win is a win, and football is certainly a game of momentum. But Denver goes to the (currently playing) 5-1 Dallas Cowboys next week, a better team than Washington even though they won’t have Dak Prescott.
Then the Broncos face the 3-5 Eagles before their bye week and back-to-back divisional games against the Chargers and Chiefs.
Denver played just good enough to win, but not great by any stretch of the imagination on Sunday. They were out-gained on the ground and through the air, scored on only 3-of-8 drives and lacked explosive, creative plays.
The good? Denver converted 53 percent of their third down opportunities today, which was leaps and bounds better than their season average (31.3%) which is 27th in the NFL. They also got Jerry Jeudy back, and he made a decent impact with four receptions for 39 yards.
But Shurmur needs to find a way to get that big play back into the Denver offense. He must find a way to get Noah Fant more involved. The third-year pro hasn’t continued trending upward as sharply as many had hoped. And Shurmur has to find a way to call plays which actually, you know, catch the defense off guard now and then.
Speaking of, the Denver defense is still the fourth-best scoring (pending Week 8’s games) and one of the top units in many other metrics. But they don’t take the ball away enough (7 total), they’re not good on third downs (45.1%, 27th) and the most expensive secondary in football has allowed far too many deep pass plays to count.
Special teams has been mostly a dumpster fire except Brandon McManus — who missed his first field goal of the season today — and Shelby Harris, who blocked another field goal today and Dre’Mont Jones had a block as well.
On one hand, the 4-4 Broncos are in the middle of the hunt in a crazily competitive AFC West. And on the other hand, they’ve been thoroughly beaten down by better teams all year long.
Can these Broncos turn this win into a mini win streak going into their bye week, or will they be pummeled by a competitive Cowboys squad next week?
